Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 June 1904 — BLAST KILLS THIRTEEN. [ARTICLE]

BLAST KILLS THIRTEEN.

Boilers of a Towboat Blow Up Near Louisville, Ky. Thirteen persons were killed, three fatally injured and sixteen hurt by an explosion of boilers which demolished the towboat Fred Wilson, off Louisville, Ky., Thursday. The Wilson was the property of the Monongahela Coal and Coke Company and left Pittsburg the previous Friday with six barges, twelve canalboats and four flats, bound for Louisville. So great was the force of the explosion that the Wilson was literally blown to pieces and her hull sunk in eighteen feet of water. Two heavy pieces of her boiler were found almost 500 yards from the bank and her flag floats from the top of a tree near Riverview park, where it was blown with a piece of wreckage. The Wilson arrived at Louisville at midnight, had proceeded down the river and was about to tie up when the explosion occurred. The cause of the accident is not known. Henry Sykes, first mate, could give no explanation of the cause of the explosion. He and Chief Engineer Walker were the only men on the boat who escaped injury. Neither man could give the names of the deck hands, nor did they know the name of a passenger who was making the trip with Captain Price. The Wilson was built eighteen years ago and was reconstructed in part last year. She was valued at $25,000, and was insured in the “special insurance,” which nil boats of the coal combine carry. Her length was 174 feet; 30 feet 8 inches beam.