I had a couple of grand aunts and grand uncles who traveled to Colorado from Saint Francois County for "the air". Someone would have lung problems (unspecified) and the mountain air was supposed to make them better. I have a couple of them buried in Colorado Springs, where they lived out their retirement years. It must have done some good since one of them died at the age of 99 years! I would assume that working in a mine is not the best environment for lungs. My father described my granddad as really dirty when he came home from Federal #1, and he was in the machine shop most of the time, only in the mine to help install pipe and what all. Since OSHA was just a gleam in the governments eye at the time, I would assume worker protection was little to none. Lungs will only handle so much dust. There were also not the drugs available for treatment as there are today, and we still do a poor job today of handling a lot of problems caused by mining activity. There were a great many folks in my family from the area surrounding Saint Francois County that ended up in Colorado. Many were from just across the river in Illinois, but they still ended up in Colorado for the rest of their lives. Just a possibility. David Rabaduex