MH Dodge and Captain Donaldson were visiting in front of the Catholic Church around 2PM Tuesday, August 16, 1898. Dodge was facing toward the rail yard when he witnessed an immense piece of iron rise 200-300 feet into the air. Immediately, the concussion of a huge explosion reached the men’s ears. Even more disturbing, this giant, rotating projectile was heading straight toward them!
Dodge’s heart froze as the approaching mass loomed larger. But instead of hitting the men, it crashed into the front of the Bashford-Burmister warehouse across the street, missing the two by only fifty feet. Fortunately no one in the warehouse was injured either.
It was soon learned that the 8-10,000 pound piece of scrap iron was, just a minute before, the entire outside of the boiler and steam chest of Engine No. 2 of the Santa Fe Prescott & Phoenix Railroad. It had flown roughly 1200 feet.
The situation was much grimmer at the railroad’s round house.
The cause of the explosion will forever be a mystery. Engine No. 2 was left in the yard to have its steam gauge and safety valve repaired and tested. Joseph Brown, a machinist, was in the round house along with seven other men. Brown was at work on Engine No. 2 “and had the steam up,” the Weekly Journal-Miner reported. “Some stated that he was adjusting the blow off or ‘pop’ valve pin on top of the boiler, while others stated that he was at work adjusting the air pump with the steam."
“These valves are set to blow off at 185 pounds,” the same paper explained. “In this case, it blew off at 172 pounds, and a party who was working there had been on the engine less than four minutes prior to the explosion, who said that the water gauge was two-thirds full of water and the steam gauge denoted a pressure of 174 pounds." Under these conditions, the blast should not have occurred, but it did. The paper described it as “One of the most terrific explosions that could be conceived… The roundhouse itself was a complete mass of wreckage as could possibly be imagined; the wood work being broken into splinters.”
Amazingly, five of the men in the round house escaped without injury. However, CC Chambers, a railroad engineer, was badly burned, cut, and bruised. The newspaper never confirmed his death. Joseph Brown was taken unconscious to Mercy Hospital, but “his skull was crushed in against the brain, and while attending physicians performed an operation to relieve the pressure, the hemorrhage was so great that death ensued [at 6PM,]” the paper reported.
The fate of Mr. Seaman was particularly horrendous. He had his left arm blown off, his left leg broken, and he was burned and cut about the head. For nearly an hour he was conscious and in so much pain and agony that he screamed, cried and begged for someone to kill him and put him out of his misery. He finally passed out and died a few minutes later.
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| Engine No. 2 was known for its deer antlers above the headlight. |
Engine No. 9 was adjacent to Engine No. 2 at the time and “was somewhat damaged.” This was surprising considering that the immense driving wheels of Engine No. 2, which held the complete weight of the engine, (between 80-90 tons,) were blown off their axels. Empty passenger cars in the rail yard had their windows blown out on the side that faced the round house, as well as other damages. Two box cars were overturned.
The sound concussion broke several windows in various parts of town. William’s machine shop, located a short distance from the roundhouse, lost all of its windows. That was the least of the concern, however, as metal projectiles of all shapes and sizes rained down like a brief monsoon shower.
“The storm of iron and steel which fell within a radius of three blocks in a thickly populated part of town makes it almost miraculous that someone was not either injured or killed,” the newspaper observed. Later it was learned that one man, Gus Barth was home bound for a time due to a missile hitting his back.
The engine's air pump, weighing over 200 pounds, was “hurled with tremendous force, whistling over buildings” and landing in the middle of Cortez street. It then “bounded about 40-50 feet from where it struck, like a rubber ball,” the paper described. After barely missing a woman crossing the street, it came to rest near the post office three blocks away.
The reverse lever of the engine, with about 10 or 12 feet of the steel bar connected to it, was blown nearly to St. Joseph’s Academy. One piece of iron hurtled all the way to Ft. Whipple, where it struck a building occupied by Col. McCord. The astonished officer was unharmed.
A large piece of iron struck the residence of Joseph Calles and his family. It blew a hole in the roof of the house, crashed through the lounge, and into the floor beneath. It was Mrs. Calles’ usual routine to take an afternoon nap where the projectile hit. Fortunately, this day she was at a neighbor’s house.
A five pound piece of iron barely missed a man’s head and went through the floor of the Brown Bros. Store.
The engine's whistle (or a piece of it,) flew to the residence of Father Quetu and buried itself two feet into the ground. A large piece of boiler pipe struck the edge of the Methodist parsonage “knocking off a few shingles and landing in the back yard.”
People’s yards (as well as the Plaza) were littered with bolts and other debris. A stray piece of iron broke through the window of the public school building.
“Within a very short time after the explosion,” the paper reported, “the scene was visited by hundreds of men, women and children;” several with their cameras. People came and went until darkness fell.
The story and aftermath of a boiler explosion on a 6-car passenger train soon after leaving the Iron Springs Depot August 17, 1909.
Shortly after the disaster, the railroad announced that it would rebuild the round house, enlarging it by one stall. Three short weeks after the explosion, it was already taking shape.
Indeed, Prescott healed quickly. It took a week for the largest chunk, (the one that hit the Bashford-Burmister warehouse,) to be removed. By then the most of the litter and debris had been cleaned up, and after only a month, a visitor to the city would find little surviving evidence to show that the explosion even occurred!
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SOURCES:
Weekly Journal-Miner, 8/17/1898; Pg. 2, Cols. 4-5.
Weekly Journal-Miner, 8/24/1898; Pg. 1, Col. 7.
IBID; Pg. 3, Cols. 1 & 2.
Weekly Journal-Miner, 9/7/1898; Pg. 3, Col. 3.
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