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Lehigh Portland Cement Company
Lehigh Limestone Quarry Explosion

Coplay, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
June 2, 1910
No. Killed - 8

USBM Final Investigation Report  PDF Format

See also: Lehigh Limestone Quarry Explosives Detonation, Apr. 19, 1920
  Sandts Eddy Quarry Explosives Disaster, Mar. 26, 1942

From the Google News Archives:  External Link
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Eight Men Killed in Quarry Explosion
Evening Record, Greenville, Pennsylvania
June 3, 1910

Allentown, Pa., June 3. -- The premature explosion of a blast in the quarry of the Lehigh Portland Cement Company at West Coplay snuffed out the lives of eight men.

Among those killed was Daniel Gannon, the foreman, of Allentown, who leaves a family of ten children.  The others were foreigners.

The men were preparing three holes sixty feet deep and had put in 600 sticks of dynamite when the explosion occurred.  No one knows the cause but it is believed something fell into one of the holes, causing the cap to explode.  Gannon and two of the other victims were hurled 200 feet away and four others were thrown into a wheat field.  All the bodies were horribly dismembered and mangled.  Death was instantaneous in each case.




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