Crosses of Iron

"Fortunately for students and scholars of the West, journalist Nick Pappas decided that the story of the nearly forgotten—and completely abandoned coal town—was worth researching and writing about. The award-winning writer’s Crosses of Iron: The Tragic Story of Dawson, New Mexico and Its Twin Mining Disasters is an instant classic and a cautionary tale of what the coal company’s pursuit of profit cost in human lives.... Pappas’s Crosses of Iron should be considered one of the finest investigations of Western mining history."

"In Crosses of Iron, Nick Pappas has skillfully fleshed out the story of Dawson—its unspeakable grief, its time as a cherished community and home, and its refusal to die in the memories of its residents and their descendants, who never live in Dawson but felt a kinship from hearing their parents' stories."

"An engrossing tale of the rise, the flowering and contributions, the disasters, and the memories of Dawson, a very important coal-mining site in northern New Mexico."