Ritchey, Otis

Baxter Springs Kansas, April 17 - Otis Ritchey, who resided south of Baxter Springs, was killed instantly at 3:45 this afternoon when he was knocked from a hoister tub and fell 100 feet down a field shaft of the Commonwealth Mine No. 2, near the Kansas-Oklahoma state line, south of Baxter. Ritchey was in the tub steadying an electric motor which was being lowered into the shaft on the end of a cable. A gear on the hoisting apparatus suddenly broke permitting the motor to fall to the bottom of the shaft. Ritchey was struck either by the rapidly moving cable or by a piece of the broken gear and knocked from the tub. His skull was crushed and his body was badly mutilated.

Neither R. J. Mitchell of Baxter Springs nor Claude Cousatte of Galena Kansas, who were assisting in lowering the motor, could account for the sudden jerk by which the heavy machinery was being lowered and which caused the hoisting gear to break. He was employed as blacksmith at the mill shaft before the shop was buried in a cave-in about three weeks ago. He had just left his shop to go to dinner when the building was buried. Ritchey is survived by a wife and two children and his parents, who live in Arkansas. He formerly lived in Joplin Missouri and several years ago was employed by the Frank-Sievers undertaking company at Joplin. Funeral arrangements are incomplete.