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Mount Union borough

Aetna Plant Fire and Blast, 1918

In the summer of 1918 the Aetna powder plant at Mount Union had a fire and an explosion less than two weeks apart. The papers that reported them disagreed on the hour of the fire, the number of buildings lost, the amount of gun cotton and the cost, so this account leaves those figures out.

The fire came on Tuesday, July 2. The Harrisburg Telegraph said buildings and a large amount of gun cotton were destroyed.

The Telegraph and the Montgomery Advertiser of Alabama both said no lives were lost. The Telegraph told of employees escaping through the windows just in time, and the Advertiser said several employees were severely burned. The Telegraph said the cause was still unknown late on July 3, and that day it reported agents of the State Fire Marshal being sent to Mount Union to inquire. The paper said no information could be obtained on whether enemies had set the fire.

The plant employed 2,000 men at the time, the Telegraph said, with plans under way to double its capacity. On July 13 the paper reported extensive preparations to repair the damage and enlarge the plant, and said about 300 more men had come to town in the last week to work for the company.

The explosion came late on Sunday, July 14, and wrecked the gun cotton building, according to the Centre Reporter. The Telegraph reported nine men injured, five probably fatally. A workman was said to have thrust a fork into a tub of dry cotton, producing a spark that set off the blast. A horse standing near the wrecked building was killed.

The five men believed to be fatally injured were taken to the Huntingdon Hospital. The Telegraph named them as M. J. Black of Indianapolis, George Parker of East St. Louis, M. W. Shields of Baltimore, Charles Holt of Jacksonville, Florida, and Willis Allen of Durham, North Carolina. We have not found what became of them.

Checked against the record. Read from the Harrisburg Telegraph of July 3, 13 and 15, 1918, and the Centre Reporter of July 18, 1918, in the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive, and from the Montgomery Advertiser of July 3, 1918, in the Library of Congress's Chronicling America. The date of the explosion is worked out: the Centre Reporter says late on Sunday, and the Telegraph's report is dated Monday, July 15. The papers disagreed on the hour of the fire, the buildings, the gun cotton, the dollar loss and the cause of the fire, so those details are left out. The Telegraph called the company the Aetna Explosives Company, while the Advertiser called it the Aetna Chemical Company. Still open: what the State Fire Marshal's agents found, and what became of the five men. We found no later report of them in the Telegraph through mid August 1918, and we have not seen a death record for any of them.

Sources

  1. Harrisburg Telegraph, July 3, 1918, page 14: fire at the Mount Union plant, buildings and gun cotton destroyed
  2. Harrisburg Telegraph, July 3, 1918, page 9: State Fire Marshal's agents sent to Mount Union
  3. Montgomery Advertiser, July 3, 1918, page 1: fire at the Aetna plant, no lives lost
  4. Harrisburg Telegraph, July 13, 1918, page 9: repairs and enlargement at the powder plant
  5. Harrisburg Telegraph, July 15, 1918, page 8: explosion injures nine, five probably fatally
  6. Centre Reporter, July 18, 1918, page 1: explosion at the Mount Union powder plant

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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Photographs from Mount Union borough

Shirley Street at Jefferson Street, downtown Mount Union, February 1990Shirley Street at Jefferson Street, downtown Mount Union, February 1990Jet Lowe, , 1990. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
A swimming pool created by a CCC dam, captioned Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, July 1941, Farm Security Administration photograph.A swimming pool created by a CCC dam, captioned Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, July 1941, Farm Security Administration photograph.Edwin Rosskam, photographer. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF33-005210-M4 (LC-DIG-fsa-8a15977) · Public domain
The corner of Shirley and Jefferson streets in Mount Union, a recent photograph.The corner of Shirley and Jefferson streets in Mount Union, a recent photograph.Wikimedia Commons (CC0) · CC0
East Broad Top Railroad & Coal Company, Roundhouse, State Route 994, West of U.S. Route 522, Rockhill FurnaceEast Broad Top Railroad & Coal Company, Roundhouse, State Route 994, West of U.S. Route 522, Rockhill FurnaceLibrary of Congress · pa3371
Mount Union in T. M. Fowler's bird's-eye view, 1906, the year after the quarantine.Mount Union in T. M. Fowler's bird's-eye view, 1906, the year after the quarantine.Library of Congress Panoramic Maps (T. M. Fowler, 1906) · Public domain
Peduzzi's Soda and LunchPeduzzi's Soda and LunchWikimedia Commons (Smallbones, CC0) · c02

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