A 1951 aerial photo confirms that this cross-hatched rectangle above the road is the remnants of a factory building. There was another one about the same size just to the north of this one. But it was the office building that blew up. Comments indicate that the explosion was during the lunch hour. Otherwise the death toll would have been significantly higher than four.
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| Donald Brockhaus posted Natural gas explosion at Phelps Dodge, New Haven Avenue...August 23, 1966. Donna Diss Did people die? Joel K Butler Back then the funeral homes ran the ambulance service. Donald Brockhaus Someone said four deaths, Donna. I cannot confirm that but I have no reason to doubt it. I know there were deaths. Dennis L. Schebig One of my classmates at EHS father was the last victim removed from the building. I think there was a total of 4 deaths. Clint Derrow This happen the do summer of 1953. The police were going door to door telling people to get out of there homes, up to two city blocks away from the the blast. In case there would be another explosion in the area, I remember this very well. Nancy Parker working at Courthouse at the time. Whole building shook. David Gerlock I sure remember it. I was at home when it happened and our whole house shook and it even broke a couple windows. And that was about 7 miles away. Linda Sechrist I also felt it in Meadowbrook Leo Vodde Meadowbrook also had a few house (gas) explosions in the 60's. Jack Smith THANK THE LORD IT WAS LUNCH TIME AND MOST OF THE PEOPLE WERE OUT OF THE BUILDING WHEN IT HAPPENED. Dave Griffith Made the national news with CBS coming here. Don Brown also posted Donald Brockhaus Notice that in this photo, the funeral homes actually provided ambulance service at this time. I believe there was a total of four people killed in this tragedy. John ByerJohn and 211 others joined You are positively from Fort Wayne, if you remember. . within the last two weeks. Give them a warm welcome into your community! There was a tv repair company that used old hearses as service vehicles. He was out there helping transport the injured. Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted Photos such as these not only record history and historic places and spaces, but they tell a story in and of themselves. I thought this one was interesting when compared with today's photos of similar scenarios. First (and what I always love) is nearly everyone is THIN. And second, at least in this photo, people are just standing in place and overseeing the havoc. In today's scenario, most of them would be pushing others to get front seat, center, and always with an iPhone in hand to get a shot of whatever, including a selfie in case they didn't already know what they looked like. Mebbe people in the '60s were just more mannerly???? |
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| Joe DelMar commented on the posting Arial picture. from the collection at the Allen county Library http://contentdm.acpl.lib.in.us/.../collec.../coll3/id/4466/ [Did Philips Dodge have two explosions or is Clint wrong about the 1953 date?] |
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| safe_image for: Aug. 23, 1966: Phelps Dodge office explosion Dave Eggiman My brother-in-law had left there to pick up lunch for him & coworkers and came back right after the explosion. All he could do was drive home. Randy C Chapman This happened around lunch hour and this is why there were far less people in the building when it exploded. The cafeteria was across the street. I just remember this was a beautiful building. Connie DePew I was ten yrs old I remember being at McCormick Park near by and feeling the ground shake I was scared and didn’t know what was happening! I never forgot the ground shaking experience but I don’t remember the explosion happening I guess I really didn’t know what happened until years later I put it together after hearing others talk about the explosion.... Peggy Dunn I was across the street at a laundromat. The blast shook the washers off the concrete base. Linda Hill I was just 12 years old and I sure remember the ground shaking. This is the most informative article I have ever read about it. Does anyone else wonder why there was a smell of gas odor but people weren't evacuated? That's what they tell you to do at home, to get out. Sadly, lives were lost, what a horrible experience for all. Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted Aug. 23, 1966 An estimated 400 rescue workers were on the scene after a lunchtime explosion turned the administration office of Phelps Dodge Copper Products Corp. into rubble. Cory McMaken |
Charles Ervin shared seven photos. The The History Center posted the comment:
Exactly 53 years ago today, on August 23, 1966 the work day began normally for the employees in the administration building of Phelps Dodge Copper Products. All of this normalcy ended at 12:05 PM when a gas explosion destroyed the building on New Haven Avenue. The force of the explosion caused the first and second floors of the center of the building to collapse into the basement. In total 7 (5 employees and 2 rescue workers) lost their lives and 19 employees were injured as a result of the explosion. The casualties would have been higher, except the lunch hour for the employees began at 11:40 AM, leaving most of the building empty at the time of the explosion. Today we remember and honor the victims one of the deadliest disasters in Allen County. #sociallyhistoryEugene Lynn Doctor Working at IHC machine shop we were on lunch break sitting on top of heavy pallets of front axles close to an open overhead - maybe 2500’? away- I swear, it felt like the pallet jumped! It was a powerful explosion.
Rick Nichter I was working for Larry Schimes’s dad at North American Van Line’s on the corner of New Haven Ave. and Meyer Rd . When the explosion happened it almost nocked us off the scaffolding we were on . When we went to see what happened the sky was a big cloud of dustIn the next it seemed like ten minutes all sorts of papers and debris fell all around us .
Jim Matthews A friend and I were playing with those little green plastic army men. Several were knocked over. Being so young we just went back to playing. I did not learn what happened until I went home and I am not sure I fully understood what happened.
We lived in Meadowbrook, back in the newer section.
Sarita Hensch It made the CBS national news that evening.
Travis Anderson What caused it does anybody know?
Missy Bradtmueller Gas line ruptured where contractors were working on it.
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| Pat Sheean posted
Another Fort Wayne First
Commercially useful magnet wire, the insulated copper or aluminum wire that is wound into coils to create electromagnetic fields, was invented in Fort Wayne, and Fort Wayne remains the magnet wire capital of the world. Without magnet wire, most electrical devices that are common features of everyday life - television, computers, radios, automobiles, hearing aids, etc. - would all be impossible.
George Jacobs was a bright young chemist at GE Fort Wayne Works in 1901. Two things especially attracted him: the problems of wire insulation for GE motors, and Ethel Mossman, the daughter of local hardware magnate William Mossman.
Jacobs moved to Cleveland in 1905, and two years later married Ethel, who helped him test various smelly solutions as possible magnet coatings. In 1910, the tale goes, her lonesome and widowed father agreed to finance Jacobs' work - if the young couple returned to Fort Wayne.
Jacobs returned, and, in 1911, William Mossman and his son, B. Paul Mossman, formed the Dudlo Wire Co. Here, Jacobs perfected a chemical enameling, or insulating, process far superior to any yet devised, and the company experienced great success through World War I and into the 1920s.
The process developed by Jacobs and his associates, who included Victor Rea, allowed wire of any thickness - especially fine wire - to be coated evenly with a chemical insulation that could be baked on in special ovens and yet remained flexible enough to be wrapped into coils. This marked a great improvement over the old style insulated wire that was hand-wrapped in fabric.
The fine, well-insulated wire that Dudlo could produce had wide-range effects. One outstanding impact was to make possible less-expensive and easier-to-manufacture ignition coils for the infant automobile industry. It was a significant innovation, for it helped make the Model- T Ford the first affordable family car.
Today, Rea Magnet Wire, Phelps Dodge Magnet Wire Co. (formerly INCA Manufacturing) and Essex, Fort Wayne's division of United Technologies - all of which were either started by members of Jacobs' team or began with companies started by them - together with the smaller New Haven Wire and Cable Co., and the large wire operation at General Electric, produce more than two- thirds of the country's magnet wire.
Philip Davis Why the name Dudlo? Pat Sheean Philip Davis By KEVIN LEININGER from the archives of The News-Sentinel Shortly after the 19th century gave way to the 20th, three fledging industrial giants - automotive, telephone and radio - began to shape America's future. But the three industries had more in common. They all needed lots of magnet wire, and Fort Wayne's Dudlo Manufacturing Co. was for a time the world's largest supplier of it. Before Dudlo opened shop in a 50-by-100-foot shed on Wall Street in 1912, magnet wire was insulated with cotton fabric, which wore out with continued use. Dudlo founders W.E. Mossman and George Jacobs had been developing an enamel coating which would last. Through trial and error, Jacobs came up with secret enamel coating. The enameling process was so well guarded that only Jacobs and one other Dudlo employee were ever allowed in the underground room where the enamel was mixed. Bankrolled by Mossman, who was Jacobs' father-in-law, Dudlo opened with 12 employees. The company was named in honor of Jacobs' birthplace, Dudley, Mass., and the state of Ohio. The company operated unsuccessfully in Cleveland for a year before moving to the Summit City. By 1922, Dudlo was the world's leading manufacturer of magnet wire. The plant was operating around the clock, and between 1912 and 1927 it turned out at least 35 million pounds of enameled wire. Among Dudlo's 105 major accounts were some of the country's leading manufacturers, such as Westinghouse and Delco-Remy. Dudlo was also the largest supplier of wire to the Ford Motor Co. By 1917, Dudlo was also producing its own wire. By 1927, though, Dudlo executives became concerned about the country's financial health and took part in a $50 million merger of some of the country's major wire makers, which became the General Cable Corp. Many Dudlo employees did not take the merger news well. Word of the merger, said one, ``came like a word of a death in the family.'' For a time, operations remained unchanged. Then, in 1930, General Cable closed Dudlo's Fort Wayne office facilities and moved them east. In 1933, General Cable's Fort Wayne general manger Victor Rea resigned to form Rea Magnet Wire, still operating here today. Later in 1933, the remaining Dudlo operations in Fort Wayne were moved to Rome, New York. The Dudlo story does not end, there, however. In 1936, Essex Wire Corp. bought the old Dudlo buildings and has been operating there ever since. --Dec. 12, 1981 William E. Householder I worked at the fort Wayne ge wiremill for 11yrs until they closed down in the early 2000s. Michael Turley Fort Wayne is also the Wire Die capital of the world. They all do work with the expanded diamond tool company in New Haven..CDT. Jeff Cook Supposedly one of the reasons behind the whispered rumors that Ft Wayne was high on the list of ‘first to be bombed’ by the Russkies ... Adrienne Maurer I am the keeper of the Essex archives, passed to me by Essex VP of Communications Tom Castaldi when he retired. There are many interesting stories about the Essex campus and the early days of the company. My favorite story is about Sara ‘Sammy’ Chapin, a former WWII female Air Force pilot who was hired to run the Essex air fleet. At one point there were 100 facilities around the country and the execs would use the planes to travel to the plants for reviews. Lisa Tolliver My grandfather worked at Rae magnet wire for many years. They hired disabled people back in the 60s, grandpa was blind and worked with a deaf man and many men with prosthetics. |
A history and 12 photos about magnet wire
More history and 14 photos
Bonus
Natural gas explosions still happen. On Jul 1, 2023, while a family was on vacation, their house exploded in Lisle, IL. None of the neighbors were injured.
I had heard a loud BOOM and wondered what kind of an amateur fireworks could make a sound that loud. Now I know that it wasn't fireworks. I live in Downers Grove, one suburb east of Lisle.
2 of 10 photos posted by 726 Visuals with the comment:
7.1.23 I House ExplosionA house on Ivanhoe Avenue in Lisle exploded this evening. According to neighbors, the family was not home at the time. There were no injuries initially reported.Photos copyright Greg Kozlick of 726 Visuals Photography.
Greg Kozlick shared with the comment: ""The sad situation in Lisle tonight. Thankfully, it seems that the family was away so they were not injured.
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| 2 [I guess we are lucky that no one driving down the road was injured as well.] |
My father was the TV repairman that took people to the hospital. He died with a massive heart attack that day leaving a wife and three children. The youngest was 6 months old. I feel he is a hero for his actions that day.
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