GALENA ? A contractor for the state has started filling in the large cave-in caused by an old mine, after it claimed a 114-year-old tavern and the last remaining bar in this southeast Kansas town.

Mickey Morang, who ran the Green Parrot with his mother and lived on the building’s second floor, said the building began sinking into a rapidly growing hole early Sunday morning.

On Tuesday, Galena police Chief Delmont said the hole had grown to about 70 feet across and 60 feet deep, interrupting water service for some residents.

Morang was able to get his mother, 80-year-old Opal Currey, and his dog out of the building, which dates to 1892. But a lovebird named Romeo could still be heard squawking as the building fell away Tuesday, with crews unable to safely retrieve the bird.

Morang said the building was insured, but City Atty. Kevin Cure warned most policies don’t cover damage caused by mine collapses.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Cure said of the cave-in.

Galena Mayor Marion Davies said the state agreed to fill in the hole, and that City Council member Darrell Shoemaker has contacted the Environmental Protection Agency requesting somebody assess the mines around the town.

“This was just an unforeseen situation that we hope won’t happen again,” Davies said.

Larry Spahn of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Surface Mining Section said the collapse was the result of “an ongoing problem” left from the area’s mining legacy.

“A lot of money came out of the ore and coal fields. Now we’re reaping the problems,” he said.

Spahn said the collapse was the result of a “drift failure,” not a more limited “shaft failure.”

Spahn said the state has filled all the known mine shafts near Galena, numbering more than 800, and capped them with concrete. But he said it is too difficult to fill in drifts, which spread in every direction from the shafts.

“I don’t think mine owners had any regard” for where they dug, he said. “They didn’t have the regulations in place that we have today. The mine owners were gods, more or less.”