Louis Tikas (born 1886 as Elias Spantidakis in Loutra, Crete) was a Greek-American immigrant, coal miner and unionist who lost his life fighting for labor rights in early 20th century America. He was the main labor union organizer at the Ludlow camp during the 14-month coal strike in southern Colorado, a major labor uprising, also known as the Colorado Coalfield War. He was shot and killed during the Ludlow Massacre, the bloodiest event of the strike, on April 20, 1914.
In 1906, Tikas aged 20, immigrated from Crete to the U.S., like hundreds of thousands of Greeks did in the early 1900s. For many, the only work they could get in the U.S. was in the dangerous coal mines around the West. Most of the Greeks in southern Colorado were working in coal mines owned by the huge Colorado Fuel and Iron company. The mines were notoriously dangerous and the miners lived in extreme poverty. The situation in the mines was medieval; from 1910-1913, 618 miners were killed in accidents.
