TWENTY-EIGHT MEN KILLED.

An Explosion of Powder and Dynamite at Pinole, Cal.

Berkeley, Cal., Feb. 21.--The packing house of the Hercules Powder works at Pinole, fourteen miles north of here, blew up at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon and in the explosion four white men and twenty-four Chinamen were killed.

Ten tons of dynamite went up in the terrible blast, shattering the sheds to dust and splinters and shaking the entire bay region like an earthquake.

W. M. Stillwell, foreman of the packing house, was blown to atoms at his post of duty.

The twenty-eight dead included every man who was at work in the packing house.

Flames burst forth in the ruins following the explosion and threatened the gelatin house where two score girls were at work.

A panic ensued and many were cut by flying glass and crushed and trampled in the mad rush for the doors.

St. Albans Daily Messenger, St. Albans, VT 21 Feb 1908
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!