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Asheville Quarry Company
Asheville Granite Quarry Dynamite Explosion

Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina
August 31, 1938
No. Killed - 5

Bureau of Mines Investigation Report  PDF Format
Asheville Blast is Fatal to Five in Stone Quarry
Burlington Daily Times
Associated Press
September 1, 1938

A terrific dynamite explosion that killed five men at a stone quarry here puzzled officials today.

Five miners were perched on a perpendicular 200-foot cliff yesterday when 50 pounds of dynamite exploded and mangled the men beyond recognition.

W. H. Bizzell, father of William Bizzell and a quarry foreman, said the blast could have been caused by one of three things.  A spark, he said, could have reached the naked powder, the rock holes into which the powder was poured could have been very hot, or the stone could have contracted to the 40 pound pressure necessary to set off the powder.

Bizzell said that he just had left the point where the men were pouring dynamite into holes when the blast sounded.

The deceased:
  • William Bizzell
  • Harley Webb
  • Will Henry
  • Wesley Moore
  • Gus Davis




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