Weatherfield Main was a large colliery which operated in Weatherfield during its industrial era. Opened in 1786, the Main mine, together with the nearby Barton mine, was key in establishing Weatherfield as a centre of employment; generations of men went on to work in the mines. The Main mine was the more successful of the two, with the Barton mine closing in 1880. In Daran Little's books Weatherfield Life and Around the Coronation Street Houses, Little states that 393 workers were killed in the disaster, although in Episode 911, Ena Sharples states that only 40 men were killed.