0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: January 14, 1913, Hazardville, Connecticut, a winter morning at the old powder mills, now operating under the Hercules powder name for exactly 30 days. 0:19 [SPEAKER_00]: Workers Charles Blondon and Jacob Stalker went about their routines, same as they had for years, 0:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The machinery hummed. 0:30 [SPEAKER_00]: The river float past stone walls built to contain disasters. 0:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Then four blasts rip through the mill and rapid succession. 0:41 [SPEAKER_00]: The sound reached Hartford over 20 miles away. 0:46 [SPEAKER_00]: It rattled windows and willimantic, 25 miles in the other direction. 0:53 [SPEAKER_00]: When rescuers arrived, they found what was left of two men, fragment scattered across the blast zone. 1:02 [SPEAKER_00]: While they gathered, fit in a single bucket. 1:06 [SPEAKER_00]: For nearly eight decades, 1:12 [SPEAKER_00]: made death really. 1:15 [SPEAKER_00]: On that January morning, death made its final collection. 1:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back friend to hometown history. 1:24 [SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that takes a stroll down the main streets and back alleys of the past to uncover how local stories shaped the world. 1:33 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters, and today we're exploring a Connecticut town, whose very name became a warning. 1:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Hazardville, named for the man, whose gunpowder mills armed the Union Army, and killed 67 of its own workers. 1:53 [SPEAKER_00]: The story begins in 1835, along the Scantic River, in northern Connecticut, 2:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Alan Loomis saw what a lot of entrepreneurs saw back then, fast-moving water and opportunity. 2:09 [SPEAKER_00]: He founded a small gunpowder mill on the scantic near the villages of Infield and Satiko. 2:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Making black powder wasn't complicated. 2:20 [SPEAKER_00]: You mixed salt, peter, sulfur, and charcoal with water, then dried, and corned it into 2:30 [SPEAKER_00]: But every step of that process could kill you. 2:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Two years later, a man named Augustus George Hazard bought a 25% stake in the operation. 2:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Augustus Hazard knew the commerce before he ever touched gunpowder. 2:50 [SPEAKER_00]: As a young man in Georgia, he'd worked as a sales merchant. 2:59 [SPEAKER_00]: He joined the militia, picked up the title, Colonel, and rebuilt himself after the panic of 1837 wiped out his savings. 3:10 [SPEAKER_00]: When he bought into the Scantic River Mills, he saw something worth rebuilding toward. 3:18 [SPEAKER_00]: By 1843, Augustus Hazard was the principal owner. 3:24 [SPEAKER_00]: He brought in partners, Alan Andrew Stinslow, Neil and Loomis, and expanded production. 3:32 [SPEAKER_00]: The Hazard Powder Company was becoming something 3:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Augustus Hazard built a mansion near his mills, an entertained guest who shaped American history. 3:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Daniel Webster, Samuel Colt, Jefferson Davis, he married Salami Goodwin Merrill, and they raised a family in the shadow of the Powderworks. 3:58 [SPEAKER_00]: The company grew with every conflict, Mexican American War, the California Gold Rush, 4:07 [SPEAKER_00]: miners needed blasting powder. 4:10 [SPEAKER_00]: The Crimean War brought contracts from both Britain and Russia. 4:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Augustus Hazard sold to both sides of that fight. 4:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Gunpowder, after all, doesn't ask questions. 4:25 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1854, the residents of the village held a town meeting and voted 4:34 [SPEAKER_00]: They chose to honor the man whose mills employed them, whose money, built their churches and schools. 4:42 [SPEAKER_00]: They called it Hazardville. 4:45 [SPEAKER_00]: At that time, it was met as an honor. 4:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Folks couldn't have known the name, would age into something darker. 4:55 [SPEAKER_00]: A worker at Hazard Powder Company in the 1850s sits on a one-legged stool, designed that 5:04 [SPEAKER_00]: If he does his off, he'll fall over and wake up with bruises, bruises are better than blowing up. 5:14 [SPEAKER_00]: He's wearing wooden shoes because iron nails aren't allowed, no metal can touch his person while on duty, no pipes, no matches, the eight toned wheels grind in their circular trials, the paste is wet, just like it should be, but he knows the truth that every worker 5:43 [SPEAKER_00]: He could be gone so completely that his family would have nothing to bury. 5:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, the wages are quite good, better than the typical manual labor, to compensate for the danger. 5:57 [SPEAKER_00]: So he sits on his one-legged stool, watching the wheels turn, and makes his peace with the risk. 6:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Augustus Hazard built his empire on explosive risk in an 1855 that risk became devastatingly personal. 6:17 [SPEAKER_00]: On April 4th, 1855, 23-year-old Horace Hazard was working at his father's powder mill when an explosion killed him instantly. 6:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Horace was Augustus Hazard's son. 6:34 [SPEAKER_00]: The owner wasn't insulated from the human cost of his business. 6:39 [SPEAKER_00]: The explosions that made his fortune had taken his own child. 6:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Augustus Hazard was 66 years old when he died in 1868, 13 years after Horace's death. 6:55 [SPEAKER_00]: He'd built a multi-million dollar business, from sales work and true dealmaking. 7:01 [SPEAKER_00]: He'd left no clear successor. 7:05 [SPEAKER_00]: The company that had thrived under his personal leadership, soon floundered. 7:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Within eight years of his death, hazard powder company would be quietly absorbed by DuPont, though the acquisition would remain secret for a decade, to avoid monopoly concerns. 7:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The pattern Augustus hazard established, except explosions, rebuilt quickly, and keep producing. 7:40 [SPEAKER_00]: explosions weren't aberrations. 7:43 [SPEAKER_00]: They were operational costs, calculated and absorbed. 7:49 [SPEAKER_00]: It was an unremarkably hot afternoon. 7:53 [SPEAKER_00]: At approximately 3 o'clock, on July 23, 1862, something ignited gunpowder in the press room. 8:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The Hartford Daily Current would later call the cause of a mystery, deemed unsolvable because of the deaths of most of the witnesses. 8:14 [SPEAKER_00]: The initial blast triggered four more explosions and rapid succession. 8:20 [SPEAKER_00]: The fireworks building, the cartridge making building, two other structures, 8:28 [SPEAKER_00]: approximately 10 tons of gum powder detonated across five buildings in less than a minute. 8:36 [SPEAKER_00]: James Beach had just finished his shift. 8:40 [SPEAKER_00]: He was washing in a brook after work. 8:43 [SPEAKER_00]: He'd been with the company only a few days. 8:47 [SPEAKER_00]: When the first explosion hit, he looked up to see his 8:56 [SPEAKER_00]: then the second explosion, the third, the fourth, the fifth, a piece of debris, possibly a timber, possibly a chunk of iron tossed into the air by the blast, struck James and the brook, rescuers found his body in the water with the heavy rock upon it. 9:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Apparently struck, 9:27 [SPEAKER_00]: James's brother Arthur was in the press room. 9:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Arthur Beach was 40 years old, married, father of seven children. 9:37 [SPEAKER_00]: He'd been working at Hazard for years. 9:40 [SPEAKER_00]: When rescuers searched the ruins, where Arthur had been standing, they found nothing. 9:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody, no clothes, no tools, 9:54 [SPEAKER_00]: The same was true for five other men in that room. 9:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Of the six men working in the press room, rescuers were covered only a single detached foot. 10:06 [SPEAKER_00]: It was found approximately a quarter mile from the black zone. 10:11 [SPEAKER_00]: The Hartford Daily Current reported that the men were in their star language, blown to atoms. 10:20 [SPEAKER_00]: the Boston Journal called it one of the most appalling calamities that has occurred in this vicinity for many years. 10:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Patrick Fallen was working his first day on the job. 10:33 [SPEAKER_00]: He'd been hired that morning. 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: By three o'clock in the afternoon, he no longer existed in any recoverable form. 10:43 [SPEAKER_00]: His family would bury an empty coffin. 10:46 [SPEAKER_00]: If they buried anything at all, 10:49 [SPEAKER_00]: this was the calculus. 10:52 [SPEAKER_00]: The company provided ample income for land purchase and family provision. 10:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Workers chose to accept deadly risk for better wages. 11:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The hazard powder company story shows the human cost of industrial capitalism before modern safety regulations. 11:13 [SPEAKER_00]: OSHA wasn't established 11:17 [SPEAKER_00]: 67 deaths over 77 years, considered unusually safe back then, it would be unthinkable today. 11:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Current regulations require extensive worker protections, safety training, protective equipment, and engineered controls. 11:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Violations result in significant fines and potential prosecution. 11:48 [SPEAKER_00]: commercial fishing, logging, and roofing remains statistically deadly, but workers are no longer expected to accept fatal risk as employment's price. 11:59 [SPEAKER_00]: 67 deaths were tuition, for lessons were still learning. 12:07 [SPEAKER_00]: just 30 days after the hazard mills were transferred to Hercules Powder Company, as a part of the court-ordered breakup of DuPont's gunpowder monopoly, the end came. 12:20 [SPEAKER_00]: On January 14, 1913, an errand sparked ignited a chain reaction, four massive explosions destroyed the complex's heart. 12:37 [SPEAKER_00]: There remains so destroyed that accounts describe them as crisp. 12:43 [SPEAKER_00]: There remains filled just one bucket. 12:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Hercules powder company conducted cost benefit analysis. 12:52 [SPEAKER_00]: The facility was obsolete. 12:55 [SPEAKER_00]: The company operated multiple facilities and favored many small plants. 13:02 [SPEAKER_00]: the decision came swiftly. 13:05 [SPEAKER_00]: They would not rebuild. 13:07 [SPEAKER_00]: After 77 years, the hazard powder company permanently closed. 13:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Today almost nothing remains. 13:18 [SPEAKER_00]: Of the 125 to 200 buildings that operated 13:27 [SPEAKER_00]: The horse barn at 32 South Maple Avenue was converted to a square dancing hall in 1959. 13:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Archaeological remnants include 21 identified stone foundations, blast walls, empty canal systems, and rusted flood control gates. 13:55 [SPEAKER_00]: 784 acres, where hikers now walk past ruins of damn structures, race walls, and pressing mills. 14:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Interpretive signage explains the history, though the massive scale of the original complex remains difficult to visualize. 14:16 [SPEAKER_00]: The village of Hazardville persists with a population of 4,600 14:22 [SPEAKER_00]: The economy has diversified into health care, education, retail, and small manufacturing. 14:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Straight names like Cooper Street preserve the industrial heritage. 14:36 [SPEAKER_00]: But the story of those 67 deaths, the single foot, Patrick Fallon's first day, the beach brothers, Charles Blondon, and Jacob Stalker, feeling just one bucket 14:50 [SPEAKER_00]: That story largely faded from memory. 14:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Scantic River State Park today, a crumbling stone foundation lies half buried and forest overgrowth, bird sing and trees overhead, a gentle breeze moves through the branches, peaceful, beautiful even, but beneath the forest floor, lie the ruins of a building where men set on one legotstools, 15:23 [SPEAKER_00]: knowing that any moment could be there last. 15:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The danger is over, but the weight of that history, the moment of those 67 lives blown to atoms, presses down like the human Connecticut air. 15:43 [SPEAKER_00]: This is where they stood, where they worked, where they accepted risk for wages, 15:51 [SPEAKER_00]: and where some of them vanished entirely. 15:56 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the story of Hazardville, a company town where 67 workers died, making the gunpowder that built America. 16:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And where the grinding wheels finally stopped after 77 years. 16:13 [SPEAKER_00]: If you found this story as sobering as I did, share it with someone who loves industrial history, 16:21 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters, every hometown has a story. 16:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Tonight is the sound of eight town wheels, winding to a halt. 16:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Good night, friend.
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