Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1912 — LOOKS LIKE POWDER MILL IS SURE GO FOR JASPER. [ARTICLE]

LOOKS LIKE POWDER MILL IS SURE GO FOR JASPER.

Aetna Mills wfil Loeate on Kanally Purchase in Kankakee Township North of Town of Wkeatfield. Gary, Ind., Feb. 6.—The Aetna Powder Company, the largest manufacturing plant of dynamite, gua cotton and nitroglycerin in the world, Ims purchased a 200-acre kite in the Kankakee river marshes and will abandon its present plant, situated at Aetna, within a mile of the Gary steel mills. The present site, situated in the sand hills and dunes near Miller, was purchased years ago for a mere song. The property now is valuable and offers have been made the company of $2,000 per acre. The primary object of the Aetna Powder Company in abandoning its present location is because of its close proximity to the Gary steel mills. Should a big explosion oeeur it would rock the expensive machinery of the steel company on its foundations, thereby crippling the big plant and causing thousands of doljars of loss. Since Gary was created several investigations have been made both by the city authorities and the steel company in the hopes of compelling the Aetna Powder Company to move from its present location. In the last ten years several smallexplosions have occurred in which several lives were lost and damage done to property for miles around. It is rumored that the Gary Land Company, a subsidiary of the United State Steel Corporation, has offered the company $750,000 for its land in order to get it out of the way, for fear a disastrous explosion should-oc-cur. This rumor, however, has not been confirmed.