End of the world, Pleasant Prairie March 9th, 1911
Attended this year's Kenosha County Archaeology Society/Pleasant Prairie Historical Society summer picnic.
Was held very close to the sight of the biggest explosion in the midwest.at the time.....Leveling all the 40 building of the plant and for miles around. ......damage to windows from Madison WI down past Chicago was reported...and heard in Cleveland.
I had heard of it in the past...but had been kinda lost........
http://www.gendisasters.com/wisconsi...osion-mar-1911
Few of the old time residents had postcards, and accounts from their grandparents.
Quote>
POWDER BLAST DESTROYS TOWN.
PROPERTY LOSS OF MILLION AND HALF AND ONE FATALITY.
(By Associated Press)
Pleasant Prairie, Wis., March 9. -- The powder magazines of the Dupont-Nemours Powder company containing 180 tons of finished black powder and dynamite exploded at the plant of the company, one mile northwest of here tonight. One man E. S. THOMPSON, a foreman is known to be dead. MISS ALICE PINCH of Elgin, Ills., dropped dead of heart disease caused by fright. 350 people were injured; several hundred houses in this place were blown completely down or were so badly damaged as to be uninhabitable and buildings ten miles away were badly wrecked.
Quote
Also not listed was 5 railroad cars filled with dynamite also went up.
Was held a Rec Center for the subdivision....just south of the location.
This area just had the flooding recede, so hiking the site couldn't be done.
Interesting.
