The vidette. (Iuka, Tishomingo County, Miss.) 1912-1967, 1915-10-14

-
a former resident of Iuka, will doubt
less be of interest to many of our
readers)
Ardmore, Okla,
Oct, l. 1915.
Dear folks
Write you concerning the ex-
plosion and to tell you that we are
all safe. Yes, Monday afternoon
at 2.25 o'clock our little city was
startled by a terrific explosion.
1t seems that there were gasoline
tanks standing on the tracks in too
bad condition to be shipped.
They were leaking gas until the
area round about was in mist of
the escaped gas. This had been
spoken of several times but no ac-
ton had been taken to remove the
danger. Finally the Refinery"
sent man to repair the damage
to the tanks. He climbed to the
top of tank and began work on
the leak. AT this time the explo-
sion occurred. Some say caused
from spark from the friction of
the hammer on the tank, others
say from the friction of the escap-
ing gas, while still others say that
the man had cigar in his mouth
at the time. No one knows. In
vestigatlons are being conducted
now. Some claim that there was
a car of dynamite in the freight
depot which caused the real dam
age. But the car from which the
gas escaped was little more than
half full of gasoline when the fluid
was pumped from it Tuesday
night, and one gallon of gasoline
is said to have the explosive pow
er of eighty-three pounds of dyna-
mite. Then according to that the
ory the explosion here was equiv
alent to the explosion of. more
than four hundred thousand
pounds of dynamite, so you can
get an idea of the enormity of the
thing.
Mrs Jim Morgan, who lived in
the district damaged, said the ag-
onized screams of women and
children was terrible. Her sister
was there after being removed
from the sanitarium following an
operation for appendicitis. She
was looking out of the window
when it occurred and noticed the
flames leaping high and timbers,
tin, glass and such being hurled
through the air. The bed on
which she was lying was bounced
about twelve inches or more into
the air and the bed and she were
covered with splintered glass; the
rollers on the bed were broken.
A big four poster solid mahogany
bed on which Ruby (Mrs Jim
Morgan) was lying was torn all to
pieces. A cut glass vase on her
dining table was broken half,
that is the top broken off smooth,
while the dishes and things in her
china closet were in a mass but
nothing but cup or two broken.
Jim Immediately moved them out
to our home. Jim missed being
in it by as much as three minutes.
He had stopped to talk to Mr. Pen
nington, of the Pennington Whole
sale House which was completely
demolished, and another man was
talking to him, so Jim drove on to
another store and at this time the
terrible thing happened. Mrs
Will Morgan and / jumped in the
car and rushed down. One little
child passed us on wagon,
burned terribly. not a thread of
clothing left on him, his little body
burned and the skin hanging.
Men and women went by bleeding
and burnt terribly. People ev-
erywhere screaming and running.
They made us go back, saying an
other explosion was to follow.
In few minutes Main Street was
clear. 1t all amounted to panic,
with clouds of dust from the dam
aged buildings, every plate glass
window shattered and many peo-
pie cut by this, the escaped gas
burning and buildings falling and
the freight depot burning. Clouds
of blackest smoke went up almost
seeming TO hide the sun. (It wa