People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1894 — BLASTS OF DEATH. [ARTICLE]

BLASTS OF DEATH.

Eight Men Killed by Explosions at Various Points. Three Slain at a Qnarry In a Chicago Suburb— Two Miners Meet Death in California—An Exploding Locomotive Kills Three. DEATH AND BUIN NEAR CHICAGO. Chicago, Aug. 1. —An explosion occurred in a building occupied by the Western Electric company at the stone quarries of Dolese & Shepard, half a mile east of Hawthorne, at 11 o’clock Tuesday morning, in which three men were killed and three injured. The dead are F. Corbin, Scott Clark and Richard Clark, his son. B. 11. Rudd and an unknown man were probably fatally injured. The bodies of the three men who were killed were scarcely recognizable when they were picked up blackened and torn and limp. Holes were torn and burned in bodies, legs and arms, and the hair on ! the heads of two of the dead men was nearly all singed off. The poor victims presented a deplorable, revolting but pitiable sight. That one of the injured men will die : as the result of his hurts cannot be i doubted. He was torn and mangled I in a frightful manner and lacerated ■ flesh hung from his face where he had : been dashed into the stone the great engine was crushing into bits. Mr. Rudd and Mr. Corbin, his assistant, were making experiments with a powerful explosive called Ruddite, an invention of Mr. Rudd. Clark and his son were in the dynamo engine room, which was constructed in the side of the quarry pit just beneath the room in which Mr. Rudd and Corbin were at work. It is not definitely known how the accident happened, but it is believed the boiler of the dynamo engine blew up and the fire set off the explosive with which Mr. Rudd was experimenting. There were four explosions. The first did but little damage, but the second completely wrecked the building and the third and fourth were so violent that windows were blown out of dwelling houses at Crawford station, nearly a mile northeast of the quarries, and in houses in Hawthorne, half a mile west. The bodies of Clark and his son were hurled nearly a hundred feet out into the quarry pit, which at that point is 30 feet deep. Corbin’s body was thrown through the front door of the building and landed near the railway tracks 20 feet away. Of the 400 men working in the quarries at the time nearly every one was blown off his feet, but none was injured. Bates and Stevenson jumped to their feet and started to run away, when two more explosions came, quite as violent as the second. For the last two years C. IL Rudd has been making experiments with his invention in behalf of the Western Electric Company at Dolese <fc Shepard’s quarries. The explosive was prepared in iron tubes 10 feet long and 2 inches in diameter. These huge cartridges were discharged by means of electricity. Winnipeg, Man., Aug. 1. —A shocking accident occurred on the Canadian Pacific at Field station, resulting in three deaths. A freight train left Field, east bound, having an engine both front and rear until the train had passed a steep grade known as “the hill.” The boiler of the rear locomotive burst, blowing the engine into atoms, and instantly killing Engineer Wheatley and Fireman Hunt. A brakeman George Kemp, on the rear cai was fatally injured by flying fragments and died Tuesday. Sonoba, Cal., Aug. 1. —The explosion of thirty-five pounds of giant powder in the Golden Gate mine Tuesday morning caused the death of Lafayette Carr and John Mangram, two experienced miners who had been sent to the 400-foot level to do some blasting.