The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-14
| E. OuPont Powder Plant
 Scene of Tragedy PUNCHING HOUSE NO 1
Four White Men Engaged in Punching Powder Into Dynamite Cartridges Are Suddenly klled-A
 Negro Also a Victim.

Five men were killed and property valued at 5000 was destroyed at 11;l5 o'clock yesterday morning by an explo- sion of dynamite in punching house No. of the l. E. Dupont powder mills The plant is situated eight miles north of Bir- mngham.
 Of the five men who suddenly perished, four were white and one was negro. Their names were:
 David coghi
 John Dixon.
 B. B. Wright.
 Tyree Wright.
 Matt Knox, negro.
 Death came to all the men suddenly, instantaneously and without even the slightest suggestion of warning.
 The bodies were torn Into fragments and hurled by the shock of the explosion distance of from 200 to 400 yards.
 Couldn't Identify Bodies.
 With only one exception none of the bodies could be identified. Small frag- ments of flesh weighing from ono to five pounds, were picked up by searchers in the ravine nearby, on the railway track and on the hillside. In not a few cases these pieces of human flesh were enmesh- ed In pulverized brick or atomized shrub bery. Wherever found the fragmentary pieces of the dead bodies were collected, placed In box and sent to Gaudin's un- dertaking establishment.
 They will probably be inferred today in common grave.
 The body of the negro was the only one that could be identified. A large portion of the trunk was found on the hillside. 400 yards from where the punch ing house had stood. The fragment of Knox's body was identified by reason of its color, and by that alone.
 Wanted to Borrow $1o.
 Knox lost his life in an effort to borrow ten dollars. At Il o'clock he left one of the mixing houses, an eighth of a mile distant from the punching house saying that he was going down and see if he couldn't borrow s1o from MT. Wright He had been gone about 15sminutes when the explosion took place. It is believed that Knox was standing at the door of the punching house talk ing to MT. Wright, who was inside, when the dynimite exploded, and that for that reason Knox's body was blown so. far and was not so completely dismembered. Knox was we'll thought of by all per sons at the plant. The body was taken to Gaudin's undertaking rooms.
 Punching house No 1 was totally wreck ed by the explosion, scarcely vestige of the building remaining.
 Railway Wrecked.
 The tram car railway track passing in front of the punching house was torn up distance of 100 yards.
 Trees from six to twenty inches in d. ameter were uprooted and shivered into splinters within a radius of fifty yards of the place of the tragedy.
 Detonatons of me explosion were heard distinctly at points fifteen miles distant from the powder plant
 The report of the explosion threw the plants employees and tneir families into a panic.
 Men dropped their work in the mixing houses, powder mill, and power house and rushed, white to the lips, into the open. Everyone wondered what had hap pened. All knew that. wherever the ex- plosion had taken place, death had surely come in its wake.
 Wives Hunt for Their Husbands. Women, the wives or daughters of the employees, focked to the scene, anxiously inquiring for their loved ones.
 One woman, the wife of one of the powder mixers, who lives three miles from the plant on the old Huntsville road, leaped to her feet when she heard the report of the explosion, rushed bare headed out of the house and ran all the way to the powder mills to learn if her husband was safe.
 When she reached the scene of the tragedy, her husband stepped up, unseen, and touched her on the shoulder. Turn ing. she recognized him. a sharp cry she fell fainting into his out stretched arms.
 Oliver Wright, brother of B. B. Wright, who was killed, was one of the first men to arrive on the scene. Grief-stricken