Coal miner and labor activist James Revell Lord (1878-1962) was born in Leeds, England, in 1878. He came to the U. S. in 1888 and he and his wife, Mary, moved to Lafayette, Colorado about 1929. Prior to that, Lord was brought in from Illinois to work with United Mine Workers of America district representatives during Colorado’s 1910-1914 Long Strike.
Lord worked alongside labor activists John R. Lawson, Frank J. Hayes and Edward L. Doyle, who was a Lafayette resident from 1908 to 1912. Lord is mentioned in Barron Beshoar’s 1942 book “Out Of The Depths: The Story of John R. Lawson a Labor Leader.”
From 1912 to 1923, Lord was president of the mining department of the American Federation of Labor, representing seven international unions. He was chairman of labor missions to Mexico representing the Pan-American Federation of Labor. During World War I, he served as a labor representative on the Council for National Defense.
As part of a UMWA committee, he helped grieving families after eight coal miners were killed in the Jan. 20, 1936 Monarch coal mine explosion. The Monarch was locate near Louisville. Lord testified at the coroner’s inquest, which found negligence on the part of the mine’s operators who allowed coal dust to accumulate in the mine, triggering the explosion.
Sources: Lafayette Leader, March 15, 1962; Lafayette Leader, August 1, 1963