Big Bang in Danville, 1896

  Sun 6/30/2013

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Big Mill explosion, 1896

Life in Danville was good, that early October in 1896. The colors of autumn were on display, and downtown merchants were advertising their wares. At the corner of Mill and Mulberry streets, J.H. Cole had stocked his "new room" with a clean line of hardware and tools. John F. Tooley had just opened a grocery at 318 Mill St. in the room formerly occupied by the Grand Union Tea Co.

Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary at the Montour Rolling Mills of the Reading Iron Co. on that second Thursday, Oct. 8.

But just before 8 p.m., the No. 5 boiler exploded, ripping through the building and sending a portion of it like a 20th-century rocket outside and into a home on Northumberland Street.

The explosion was felt in most parts of Danville, shaking some buildings and rattling windows.

By the time the dust and debris settled, a 6-week-old baby had been killed in its mother's arms. The explosion also resulted in the deaths of five workmen inside the mill. Thirty-three other employees suffered injuries ranging from critical to minor. Mrs. John Baron, mother of the 6-week-old child, suffered broken ribs when part of the original 28-foot-boiler crashed through the home and landed 100 feet beyond the house, 180 total yards from the point of the explosion.

One of those injured in the blast was the woman's husband.

Upon exploding, part of the boiler was forced backward inside the building, sending scalding steam, bricks and pieces of iron in all directions.

News of the disaster spread quickly, and hundreds from the town rushed to the scene, looking for friends and family members and to provide aid to the injured.

Robert Reid, the Montour Rolling Mills manager and one of those scalded by steam and injured by debris, pulled a co-worker from under a pile of rubble.

The dead included two brothers, Thomas and Oliver Cromwell, brick masons who were under the No. 5 boiler at the time of the explosion, repairing the roof of the furnace. The others killed were Johnson Lovett, a charger at heating furnaces, John Castleman, a plumber, and John Mullen, employed on the hotbed.

What caused the disaster has never been determined. Just the day before the fatal accident, an inspector from Reading had checked the boilers at Montour Rolling Mills. And some five minutes before the explosion, several men and women were standing on a line where the boiler exploded, but had moved on to another area of the mill.

Within days of the tragedy, laborers were clearing away debris and making repairs, allowing the mill to resume operations in fewer than two weeks.

Oddly, the Oct. 8, 1896, blast occurred almost 42 years to the day of another deadly explosion at the mill. On Oct. 7, 1854, as many as 10 people died and many others were injured when a boiler exploded and passed through a home right next door to the one destroyed in the 1896 blast.

In the 1854 explosion, those killed included two children who had been sleeping in their beds. The body of one of them was found inside the boiler, which landed in the same area as the one in 1896.

One more oddity: The first "T" rail in America was rolled Oct. 8, 1845, 51 years to the day of the 1896 boiler explosion. Danville's place in the history books was forever forged because of the "T" Rail, but there was a cost of hard labor and lost lives.



Five workmen were killed and 33 employees were injured when the No. 5 boiler exploded in the Montour Rolling Mills of the Reading Iron Co. in 1896.

Contact/Location

Matt Keenan
CUSHING, WI
715.648.5000