But you had to be sixteen to enter the mine so my Dad said I'd have to wait. I was so interested that when I turned fifteen I told him that I wanted to go down in the mine on my sixteenth birthday and he agreed.
However that year there was a big collapse in a mine in Louisiana that was under a lake. An oil company got mixed up and drilled down into the mine. The water entered through the hole draining the lake. Though the workers miraculously survived the payouts by the insurance companies were huge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur#Drilling_disaste...
So then the insurance companies, stunned by the large payouts, banned anyone who wasn't an employee from the mines. Seeing those pictures just brings back all the disappointment.