The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-09-10
NINETEEN MEN DEAD
Their Bodies Were Blown to Pieces,
the Earth Beneath The Powder Mill
Ripped Open as by an Earthquake,
Houses Half Mile Distant Battered
in, Rails From a Nearby Road Torn
From the Stills, and Cattle in the
Fields Flung to the Earth and Stun
ned.
(By the Associated Press.)


ConneIlsville, Pa, Sept. 9.-The
Rand Powder Mills DIT Fairchance,
six miles south of Uniontown, were
entirely wiped out by an explosion
at sos o'clock today. OF the thirty
two men who went to work in the
mill this morning, nineteen are known
to be dead. OF these thirteen have
been identified. Nine men, including
c. M. Rand, manager of the plant,
were seriously injured.
Scores of people in the town of
Fairchance, within half mile of the
powder mills were more or less pain
fully injured. The shock of the eX-
plosion was distinctly felt in Connells-
vile, twenty miles away, buildings be-
ing rocked on their foundations. At
Uniontown three hundred panes of
glass were broken. In the town of
Fairchance there is scarcely q house
that did not suffer damage. The sides
were battered as though axes had been
used. Hay-stackS were toppled over
in. the 4Hefds and 1--we :; stock ssg.sw6re.
Stunned" The.ifaiis of the. Baltimore
and Ohio Railway and the West Penn
sylvaffia Traction Railways Company
We're rooted from the roadbed and
traffic was delayed from four to six
hours transfers being made over the
Pennsylvania.
Train No 80 on the Baltimore and
Ohio had a narrow escape from ami
hilation 1t had just passed the Rand
ellis when the explosion occurred.
The windows in the passenger coaches
were shattered and passengers thrown
into a panic. Had the train been a
few seconds late it would have been
blown up the mills were in few
rods of the tracks.
a street car on the West Pennsyl-
vania Railroad had also passed just
few seconds before the explosion
and was far enough away to escape
damage though it was derailed.
There were seven explosions i'll all
and every one of the ten buldiT Ss
was totally demolished. Not a yes
tige of them remains tonight,
The debris that was Strewn over the
ten acres of ground where the plant
was located took fire soon after the
explosion and added its terrors to
the disaster. The diSmembered parts
of the dead were burned in many in
stauces. identification of many was
made by parts of clothing alone.
The first three explosions were not
as serious as the last four. Then the
packing house, pressing room and
magazine blew up followed by two
cars of dynamite standing on a near
by railroad siding which were set off
by the conclusion, from the powder
mill explosions
Two other cars remained intact and
1t was with difficulty that they were
moved to d place of safety after the
explosion.
When the bodies were recovered the
work of identification was very diff
cult. Small pieces of bodies were
picked up all over the place. but they
were so mangled it was difficult to
collect enough fragments of any one
body to make identification possible.
Almost half mile mountainWard
from the plant an office. oversleeve,
wet with blood, was picked up.
The whole where the magazine eX-
ploded is about fifteen feet deep and
fifty yards square. The earth, black
and soggy. is thrown up in huge
chunks some of them weighing hum
dred pounds. Under the high banks
of earth thrown up at this place work
men are working with picks trying to
get trace of more bodies.
Manager G. Mortimer Rand was ia
ken to his home at Uniontown on a
street car about noon. He suffered
greatly from shock aside from the
painful injuries he received. Mr.. Rand
could not be seen and no statement
from the company could be obtained
on the accident, Or the cause of it.
This is the third explosion at the
Rand plant within the past two years.
Three men were killed in the first ex-
plosion. Two We're hurt in the sec
ond which was only slight few
months ago the citizens of Fsircharce
had an injunction served on the Rand
powder firm asking the court that the
firm be compelled to move their works
from that vicinity. They claimed that
the town of Fairchance and the safe
ty of it's citizens were jeopardized by
the location of the plant so close to
the town This injunction is still
pending in the Superior>court
v>n..cI... ror1