Marion A. Speer, a lad from Texas, went to work in the spring of 1904 as a nipper on the railroad which was building from Eureka to Animas Forks. His job was to carry heavy tools such as drills and picks from the blacksmith shop to the drilling and blasting crews, and the dull ones back. The work was very hard but he had to have the money if he expected to go to the Colorado School of Mines, which was his intention. One day Wigglesworth, his boss, came to him and told him he’d have to let him go as the work was too heavy for him. Marion, then, proceeded to “bawl his eyes out”. When Wigglesworth found out the reason he not only took him back but hired a Mexican boy to help him. The construction outfit used Engine 3 which was brand new that year, was very powerful and a beauty and was called “Gold Prince” after the mine at Animas Forks. That piece of railroad was completed in the fall except for sidings which were laid the next year. Young Speer worked at the Silver Lake mill for several summers and often got to ride in Engine 100; he also went to Gladstone in the 34 and was on the S. N. coach, the Animas Forks, when it turned over the first time. The track still lay to Albany in 1907 for a train took a bunch of picnickers, of which he was one, down that way and let them off. The railroad workers, among whom was Speer, ate at the Silver Wing (Condit) boarding house, and they were lolling around outside one evening in June of 1904 when a terrific explosion took place at the Toltec blacksmith shop, directly across the river, about 200 feet away. Debris of all descriptions peppered the boarding house. The Silverton _Standard_ reported the event thus: _An Awful Explosion_—“Three men, Percy Kemper, Edward Crane and L. W. Lofgren, were killed last Sunday night about ten o’clock by a powder explosion at the Toltec Tunnel of the Sioux Mining Company, located above Eureka near the mouth of Picayune Gulch. “Kemper and Crane were literally blown to pieces, parts of their bodies being found in different places, 300 and 400 yards from the scene of the explosion. The blacksmith shop was, of course, demolished. When the sound of the explosion brought others to the scene, Lofgren was still alive, but he died on the way to Silverton. The remains of the other two unfortunate men were brought to this city Monday afternoon. “Lofgren, it seems, had been working behind a metal mine car which absorbed much of the force of the explosion. This accounts for the fact that Lofgren was not killed outright. “At the coroner’s inquest held Monday a verdict was returned that the three men came to their deaths by and through carelessness in heating powder. “The largely attended triple funeral was held Wednesday afternoon under the auspices of the Miner’s Union of which all three of the deceased were members in good standing, the local Odd Fellows, however, turning out in honor of their deceased brother, Lofgren. Reverend Shindler preached the funeral sermon.”