Went to a semi-local gunshow today, found nothing, which is not unusual. On the 90 mile drive home we decided to stop in some antique malls, and during the last stop I was suprised to find a box buried in the back of a stall which I have searched for for some years. This is a case for an explosive called Pyrotol. Pyrotol was made for a short period in the 1920s by DuPont, using surplus stocks of WWI propellant (smokeless powder). Note on the crate that it does not have the normal "manufactured by" "made by" etc, but instead "cartridged by". The explosive was discontinued in 1928, and finding the case, especially in this condition, is quite rare.
This explosive has a unique place in history for the US, and specifically for my region. It was used in the worst school bombing ever done in the US, during which 45 people were killed, 38 of them children (two blasts, one murder). This was the Bath school bombing, which took place about 15 miles from my home. It was an intentional bombing which was done by a bitter man, Andrew Kehoe, who in part blamed the consolidation of small area schools for costs related to his property taxes. In a bombing which appears to have been planned for over a year, he used over a ton of explosives, placed in two areas in the basement of the school. Fortunately only approximately half went off, and many survived the detonation and subsequent collapse of the building. Unfortunately some that survived the blast, including one boy thrown from the building by the force of the blast and was later walking away, were killed when Kehoe returned to the school a short time later and, calling the School Superintendent over to his truck, fired a rifle into another case of explosive by his feet detonating it and killing himself and all nearby.
By coincidence, after several years of looking for a good example, my finding this explosive box occurred today, on the 86th anniversary of the blast - 18 May 1927.
This explosive has a unique place in history for the US, and specifically for my region. It was used in the worst school bombing ever done in the US, during which 45 people were killed, 38 of them children (two blasts, one murder). This was the Bath school bombing, which took place about 15 miles from my home. It was an intentional bombing which was done by a bitter man, Andrew Kehoe, who in part blamed the consolidation of small area schools for costs related to his property taxes. In a bombing which appears to have been planned for over a year, he used over a ton of explosives, placed in two areas in the basement of the school. Fortunately only approximately half went off, and many survived the detonation and subsequent collapse of the building. Unfortunately some that survived the blast, including one boy thrown from the building by the force of the blast and was later walking away, were killed when Kehoe returned to the school a short time later and, calling the School Superintendent over to his truck, fired a rifle into another case of explosive by his feet detonating it and killing himself and all nearby.
By coincidence, after several years of looking for a good example, my finding this explosive box occurred today, on the 86th anniversary of the blast - 18 May 1927.
