1954 — July 16, explosion/fire/explosion, Kent Defense & Fireworks Mfg., Chestertown, MD–11

–11 Horsey, Joan O, and Jerry Keiser. Images of America: Kent County. Arcadia, 2005, p. 24.
–11 NFPA. “Large Loss Fires of 1954.” Quarterly of the NFPA, Vol. 48, No. 3, Jan 1955, 206.
–11 O’Donnell, Craig. “Talk planned on 1954 explosion.” MyEasternShoreMD.com, 8-13-2009

Narrative Information

Horsey and Keiser: “The Kent Defense and Fireworks Manufacturing Plant in Chestertown… exploded on July 16, 1954. Firefighters fought in vain to bring the area under control….Eleven people were killed, and many more were injured. It destroyed over half of the five-acre plant. One of the owners of the plant was Chestertown mayor Philip G. Wilmer.” (Horsey, Joan O, and Jerry Keiser. Images of America: Kent County. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005, p. 24.)

National Fire Protection Association: “July 16, Chestertown, Md., Kent Mfg. Co., $327,500, 11 killed.

“Fireworks, fusses. Eleven employees were killed, 50 were injured and more than 30 buildings at tine plant were destroyed by fires and explosions that followed an initial explosion in the final assembly building: The first explosion is believed to have orig¬inated in a drying oven and one report gives a broken bight bulb as a possible ignition source. Fires broke out in many of the small buildings at the plant site but because of repeated explosions, fire fighting was de¬layed 30 minutes. During this time, firemen showed great courage in wetting down sev¬eral uninvolved exposures. Because of the nearness of the plant to a built-up section of the town, many buildings outside the plant suffered explosion damage.” (National Fire Protection Association. “Large Loss Fires of 1954.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 48, No. 3, Jan 1955, pp. 201-326.)

Maryland Department of the Environment: “From 1941 through 1954, the 20-acre Kent Defense Industries (KDI) ordnance plant was located on property just southwest of 800 High Street, Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland 21620. The roughly L-shaped, angular shaped parcel of land is bounded to the northwest by Gillespie & Sons, Inc. Concrete Plant, to the south and west by Radcliffe Creek, to the east by industrial property and to the northeast by an old railroad right of way. The plant exploded in 1954 and the demolition debris was reportedly either spread in a low-lying area southwest of the property or transported to a quarry outside of town for disposal. The plant site is now the Chestertown Business Park and is comprised of several warehouse and office buildings, constructed between 1981 and 1991….

“The corporate entity, KDI, acquired the property in 1944 and operated an ordnance manufacturing facility at the site until 1954. For 13 years, KDI manufactured flares, fuses, munitions components, and military fireworks. After the explosions of July 17, 1954, the plant closed down and the property eventually was transferred to Vita Foods Incorporated and finally to Dixon Valve.

“Under KDI’s ownership, there were 300 employees and 65 buildings on the property. Fifty-seven small buildings housed production lines for the manufacture of ordnance products. Eight larger buildings housed offices, and storage facilities. Many of the site buildings were noted to be either sheds or shacks, most of which were damaged or demolished in the 1954 explosion. Following the explosion, the majority of waste material from the site was transported to a local quarry, now identified as KDI Pit, for disposal… This included fireworks, fuses, waste ordnance, and munitions related materials. The remaining waste was pushed to the property’s marshy western margins and left in place.

“KDI is documented to have disposed of waste material from the manufacture of fireworks and military ordnance on the margins of the property. It is suspected that an area of the property was used as an open burning dump for manufacturing waste and off-spec fireworks and munitions

“MDE performed a Site Investigation of the soils, sediments, groundwater and surface waters of the KDI site in November 2005. The samples were analyzed for the presence of metals and cyanide, volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, pesticides and poly-chlorinated biphenyls, and perchlorates. A toxicological assessment was performed on the resulting data and it was determined that risk estimates for dermal exposure to detected non-carcinogenic surface soil contaminants exceeded Maryland Department of the Environment and Environmental protection Agency recommended levels for the child visitor population using the maximum detected concentrations….” (Maryland Department of the Environment. “Facts About…Kent Defense Industries (MD-532) State Master List Site.” 9-28-2006 update.)

O’Donnell: “Chestertown – ‘“Our tramping along the lane was interrupted by a shock, which made us feel as though we had been bumped into the air by an inch or two.’…. ‘Mayor Philip Wilmer, president of Kent Manufacturing, ran into the street at the first blast to see the roof of Building B of his plant being rocketed 100 feet into the air.’ ‘One blast ripped the tire off a truck and sent it so high into the air it looked like a doughnut.’…

“These are some of the recollections on file at the Historical Society of Kent County, by people who were there when the Kent Manufacturing fireworks plant exploded….

“On the morning of July 16, 1954, worried residents streamed out of town amid hundreds of shattered windows, many damaged roofs and numerous splintered doors.

“At 10:25 a.m. an earsplitting blast in Building B sent up a mushroom cloud. Another followed at 10:27. The biggest was at 10:40 and others, much smaller, followed.

“Kent Manufacturing Company, at the end of Lynchburg Street bordering marshy Radcliffe Creek, opened in 1941 as a defense plant. Chestertown Mayor Philip Wilmer, Tony Fabrizi, Joseph McLain, and Charles Eshman were the owners of the plant at the time of the explosion and fire. The monthly payroll was some $50,000 with about 350 employees. Four out of five were women.

“That morning 11 people were killed. Nelson Lord, Mary Fallowfield, Nellie Starr, Tina Mae Taylor, Magdaline Seiler and Eva Fisher were those identified. Remains of five other women never were: Ida Mench, Marguerite Batchelor, Betty Marie Wheedleton, Mary Covington, and Barbara Rockermann.

“About 50 workers were injured. Only a few were hospitalized.

“A rumor began: the whole town would be blown to bits by explosives cached in huge underground vaults. People rushed to the outskirts and it was impossible to cross the bridge to Kingstown….

“LIFE Magazine, July 26, made a shot of firemen leading survivors across a smoldering wasteland its ‘Photo of the Week.’….” (O’Donnell, Craig. “Talk planned on 1954 explosion.” MyEasternShoreMD.com, 8-13-2009.)

Newspaper:

July 16, AP: “Chestertown, Md. (AP) — Rescue workers fought their way into the blazing ruins of a fireworks and explosives plant about 1:25 P. M. (EDT) today and brought out the first two bodies. The dead were a man and a woman, not identified. Tom Small, a worker who said he was in the first building that blew up, earlier reported seeing a man on the ground near the building who appeared to be dead.

“Chestertown, Md. (AP) — Blast after blast ripped through a fireworks plant on the west edge of Chestertown today for more than an hour and authorities ordered the town evacuated. They feared the explosions might reach large stores of nitroglycerin and other explosions in magazines at the Kent Manufacturing Co. It could not be determined immediately if any of the plant’s 275 workers had been killed but one witness said it would be a miracle if there were no dead. Twenty casualties were taken to Kent-Queen Annes Hospital.

“There was one big explosion as late as 11:20 A. M., 50 minutes after the first blast.

Inhabitants Flee

“Wallace H. Ford, county tax assessor, said he was the only one left in the courthouse by that time and the bridge across the Chester river into the adjoining county was jammed with cars fleeing the town. Hundreds of residents, including mothers pushing baby carriages, fled across the Chester River Bridge to safety.

“Chestertown, population 3,140, is directly east of Baltimore across Chesapeake Bay.

“Rescue workers concentrated their first efforts at clearing houses near the plant.

“Gov. McKeidin’s office said in Annapolis the Governor, en route home from the Governors’ Conference, had heard about the disaster and ordered all available help from the National Guard and the State Civil Defense organization. Gen. Milton A. Reckard said he has ordered the commander of the Eastern Shore detachment to offer his group’s entire facilities. A National Guard helicopter was dispatched to the scene and several mobile soup kitchens were en route. The Civil Defense said nine ambulances were known to have left Annapolis to lend assistance.

The Kent-Queen Annes Hospital was swarmed with injured who managed to get out. Just how many of the 300 who work at the plant were hurt was impossible to tell immediately….

“A series of explosions broke windows all over the town at a distance of a half mile and more away. Smoke columns rose into the air for 1,000 feet.

“The plant occupies a 20-acre site at the west edge of Chestertown, about a quarter of a mile from the center of town. It is made up of about 30 or 40 buildings, most of them are small and dispersed.

“…first reports from the scene indicated there might be many casualties in one of the larger buildings where women workers assemble fireworks and detonator fuses.

“Calls for help went out to Easton, Elkton, and Dover, Del. Hospitals there were alerted.

“…one report indicated small houses containing the more powerful explosives still hadn’t gone up. Whole bundles of fireworks were blasted into the air and then exploded. Rescue work was hampered by the continuing explosions….

“The fireworks and munitions plant blew up in a 90-minute series of explosions felt as far as 16 miles away. Two hours after the first blast, rescue workers still weren’t able to get near the plant to count casualties among the 275 workers known to be there today….

“The fireworks plant was opened here during World War II and has been making detonator fuses for the armed forces as well as fireworks….

“The first explosion was about 10:30 A.M. EDT and apparently let go in a plant where women workers put fireworks together on an assembly line….

“The explosions grew in intensity as they spread through the plant, made up of 30 to 40 small buildings and two larger assembly houses on a 20-acre site….” (Evening Capital, Annapolis, MD. “Chestertown Shaken by Explosion.” 7-16-1954, p. 1.)

Sources

Evening Capital, Annapolis, MD. “Chestertown Shaken by Explosion.” 7-16-1954, p. 1. At: http://newspaperarchive.com/fullpagepdfviewer?img=49978567&sterm=chestertown+explosion

Horsey, Joan O, and Jerry Keiser. Images of America: Kent County. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005. Partially Google digitized at: http://books.google.com/books?id=aRWBGxZhXq4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Maryland Department of the Environment. “Facts About…Kent Defense Industries (MD-532) State Master List Site.” 9-28-2006 update. Accessed 6-11-2013 at: http://www.mde.state.md.us/assets/document/brownfields/Kent%20Defense%20Industries.pdf

National Fire Protection Association. “Large Loss Fires of 1954.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 48, No. 3, Jan 1955, pp. 201-326.

O’Donnell, Craig. “Talk planned on 1954 explosion.” MyEasternShoreMD.com, 8-13-2009. Accessed 6-11-2013 at: http://www.myeasternshoremd.com/news/kent_county/article_1398a880-2bbf-56f8-bd71-ad358eadd630.html