Woody Guthrie wrote a song called "Ludlow Massacre" about this event.

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At this location, striking miners set up a tent colony in September of 1913. Tensions built in the ensuing months between the miners and their union (the United Mine Workers of America- UMWA) and the mine owners- the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I), the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company (RMF), and the Victor-American Fuel Company (VAF).

On April 20, 1913, the 1,200 striking miners and their families were attacked by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards. In the ensuing battle, between 19 and 25 people were killed. The sources vary on the exact number, but all sources include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent.

The "Ludlow Massacre" became a rallying cry and 700 to 1,000 striking miners "attacked mine after mine, driving off or killing the guards and setting fire to the buildings."

By the time the federal troops stopped fighting, the death toll was between 69-199 people.

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Guthrie never recorded the song. The melody was written by a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman, and Pete Seeger started performing it ten years after the plane crash. Since then, numerous artists have recorded the song (like The Boss), and it is considered one of Guthrie's last important works.

The verse attempts to give dignity to the Mexican laborers by naming them:

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"

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On January 28, 1948, a plane crash occurred near Los Gatos Canyon, 20 miles west of Coalinga in Fresno County, CA (this county park contains the creek that runs through the 24-mile canyon).

The plane was deporting 28 Mexican fruit-pickers (with 4 American crew members) according to a U.S. treaty with the Mexican government known as the "Bracero Program". There is some dispute about whether the program was beneficial or not, but the fact is that none of the Mexican laborers (27 men and 1 woman) had their names listed in any of the media coverage.

The bodies of the Mexican laborers were buried in a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, California. The newspaper reports simply referred to them as "deportees." Only twelve of them were ever identified.

Woody Guthrie read the account, was outraged at the callous treatment of the workers, and wrote the lyrics to "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)."

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Huddie William Ledbetter, more widely known as Lead Belly, and his wife, Martha, lived at this apartment building in New York City in the 1940s.

The famous folk singer lived at this apartment until he died of Lou Gehrigs's disease in NYC on December 6, 1949.

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