Butte, MT, Railroad Yard Explosion and Fire, Jan 1895

Fearful Loss of Life

Fifty Persons Killed Outright By An Explosion of Dynamite at Butte

And Hundreds More Are Wounded During A Fire Warehouses Containing Dynamite Are Blown Up With Awful Results- Forty Dead Bodies At Once Removed and Many More Thought To Be In The Ruins - Nearly Every Member of The Fire Department Numbered Among The Killed - Three Separate Explosions.

The following telegram was received yesterday morning by Chief Irwin of the Aspen fire department:

"Butte, Mont., Jan. 16. - Chief Aspen Fire Department - Nearly whole department killed. Chief killed. Forty-four dead and 100 wounded." "Pete Sanger."

The following particulars of the accident are contained in a special to The Denver News:

Butte, Mont., Jan. 15. - During a fire in the Montana Central railway yards at [illegible] o'clock this evening, a warehouse containing powder caught fire and exploded with tremendous force, killing a number of firemen and spectators and maiming many others.

Forty are known to be killed outright and it is thought that the list will be increased to seventy-five.

There were three separate explosions, the first two breaking nearly every window in a radius of two miles.

Men and women were mowed down like grass before a sickle and many were stunned by the force of the terrific explosion. Debris from cars and adjoining buildings was scattered high in the air and for half a mile away, many of the flying articles striking people in the crowd.

Every ambulance and vehicle and doctor in town was soon on the scene and carrying off the mangled dead and wounded.

At 9:55 o'clock the fire department responded to a call from box 72 - the call of death to nearly the entire department. The fire was either in the Kenyon Connell or the Butte Hardware company's warehouse and both contained powder.

Continued on page 2