 On September 10, 1897, about 300 to 400 unarmed strikers—nearly all of them Slavs and Germans—marched to a coal mine owned by Calvin Pardee (in the town of Lattimer in Hazle Township) to support a newly formed UMW union.The demonstrators were confronted by law enforcement officials several times on the road; they were ordered to disperse, but kept marching.The deputies had spent most of the morning joking about how many miners they would kill.