Jellico, Tennessee/Kentucky
Railroad Car Explosion
September 1906
DISASTER IN TENNESSEE CAUSES TWELVE DEATHS.

Jellico, Tenn. --- Twelve deaths, the injuring of scores of other persons and $500,000 damage to property were caused here Friday when a carload of dynamite standing on a track near the Southern railroad station exploded with a report that was heard twenty miles. Buildings were shattered in the business section of the town and nearly every piece of glass within a radius of one mile of the place was broken.
One body remains unidentified. There is a possibility that other bodies may be recovered from the ruins.
Eighteen persons were seriously injured, among them being R.D. BAIRD, president of the national bank of Jellico and mayor of Jellico, who was cut on the neck.
The freight car, belonging to the Pennsylvania railroad lines, contained 450 boxes, or 20,000 pounds, of high explosives, consigned to the Rand Power Company, at Clearfield, Tennessee.
Two causes are assigned for the explosion. One is that three men were shooting at a mark on the car and that a bullet entered the car, causing the explosion.
The other is that while the car was standing on a side track a carload of pig iron was switched against it and that the impact caused the explosion.
Jellico is situated on the Tennessee-Kentucky line, about sixty miles from Knoxville, the main portion of the town being on the Tennessee side. The lines of railroad, the Southern and the Louisville & Nashville, enter it. The depot of the Southern, which is located near the scene of the explosion, was wholly wrecked. Two hotels, the Glen Morgan and the Carmathian, were badly wrecked, the third story of the latter being destroyed.

Summit County Journal Colorado 1906-09-29
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!