Elected in November 1912, Colorado Governor Elias M. Ammons sent the Colorado militia to Boulder County to quell the strike violence after a Sept. 17, 1913, gun battle raged on the east side of Lafayette. Union sympathizers said that nonunion employees at the Simpson mine, “the Bulgarians,” fired indiscriminately at union members returning from work at an adjacent union mine. The nonunion workers claim that union sympathizers started the fight by throwing rocks through one of the company buildings in the Simpson compound.