Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1902-05-16
NAPTHA EXPLOSION
SCORE OF LIVES LOST IN PITTS.
BURG DISASTER.
Two Hundred Spectators were Injured and the
Physicians Say that Majority Of Them
will Die-Were Watching Burning Train
When Two Tank Cars Exploded. Dreneh.
Ing Them with Burning Oil

Pittsbrrg, May 14.-The Sheridan
yard of the Pan Handle Railroad was
the scene this evening of the most dis
astrous explosion and fire known in
this section in many years. A score of
lives were lost and about 200 persons
were so badly burned that, according to
the judgment of the physicians in at
tendance, 75 per cent of them will die
from the effects of their injuries.
The accident happened in the rail-
road yards at Sheridan, where the Pan
Handle Railroad makes a turn near
Cork Run. Banked in by two high
hills, hundreds of people we're caught.
In the shifting necessary to make up
train, five tank cars, two of them filled
with refined petroleum and two with
naptha, were switched with too much
force, and one of the cars of naptha
was broken. Instantly the in1am-
mable bi-product poured out in a
stream. The trainmen, seeing that
one of the cars was damaged, started to
pull them out of the way. As the
damaged car passed a switch light the
dripping naptha caught on the light
fame and almost instantly an explosion
followed.
The explosion sent showers of burn
ing naptha over the freight station near
at hand, and also enveloped a number
of carloads of coke and lumber that
were close by, and in moment all
were blazing Fifteen minutes after
the first explosion the two cars of re-
fined petroleum that had been damaged
by the bursting of the tank of naptha
and were leaking blew up with terrific
report.
The yards at Sheridan lie in mar.
row valley. On the south side of the
yard is rounded hill, bare of trees.
On the other side of the yard hill
fully 200 feet high rises sheer above
the roundhouse. In less than Is min
utes both these hills were black with
men, women and children, who were
eagerly watching the flames in the cut
below.
Burning oil had found its way into
the sewer, and as soon as it reached the
open air at the mouth the third explo-
sion followed. The escaping naphtha
had blown to atoms the Sumpter hotel
and the Coils house, on River road,
and badly wrecked a frame building
near by, in which we're congregated 200
or more men from Pittsburg and vicin-
ity, betting on the races and ball
games. Few of the occupants of this
building escaped injury, many being
badly hurt.
The third explosion served as a-warn-
ing to but few of the spectators at
Sheridan. Without moments warn
ing there was an awful roar, loud
enough to be heard in the heart of
Pittsburg, five miles away, and sheet
of flames shot up from the wreckage
and enveloped both hillsides, even to
their tops.
There was moments lull, as though
every living thing in the vicinity had
been annihilated, and then came the
cries, the screaming for help, and the
blanks in the crowd told of the ex-
plosion's dread result. Both of the two
remaining tank cars had blown up. A
torrent of flames belched forth on each
side of the t, ack, sweeping back the
terrified spectators like charge of ar
tillery, and sending shower of flame
over their heads.