The Allegheny Arsenal explosion results in the…
June 1862 CE
On Wednesday, September 17, 1862, around 2 pm, the arsenal explodes.
The explosion shatters windows in the surrounding community and is heard in Pittsburgh, over two miles (three kilometers) away.
At the sound of the first explosion, Colonel John Symington, Commander of the Arsenal, rushes from his quarters and makes his way up the hillside to the lab.
As he approaches, he hears the sound of a second explosion, followed by a third.
Fire fighting equipment as well as a bucket brigade try to douse the flames with water.
The volunteer fire company from Pittsburgh arrives and assists in bringing the fire under control.
By the time the fire is put out, the lab has been reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble.
Seventy-eight workers, mostly young women, are killed. Fifty-four bodies are unidentified, and are buried in a mass grave in the nearby Allegheny Cemetery.
The most commonly held view of the cause of the explosion was that the metal shoe of a horse had struck a spark that touched off loose powder in the roadway near the lab, which then traveled up onto the porch,where it set off several barrels of gunpowder.
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