This story was displayed on the front page of The Gazette’s July 6, 1903, newspaper.
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Fourth of July celebrations in Colorado Springs 116 years ago were meant to conclude with a significant bang — a malicious grand finale composed of about 150 sticks of dynamite.
A culprit attempted to blow up the Colorado Springs Electric Company’s main plant, which supplied power to Colorado Springs, Colorado City, Manitou Springs and two mills, with 75 pounds of dynamite.
The failed plot is the Colorado Springs Police Department’s latest peek into “historical police-related events” dating back to the 1800s. Similar happenings are posted to the department’s Facebook page every two weeks as part of its “Back of the File” feature, which began last summer.
Retired Colorado Springs police officer Dwight Haverkorn researches and selects the historical snippets. Other posts have included a crash involving a “CSPD Cadillac,” the department’s then 13-man police force, and two police impostors who robbed more than a dozen people in Monument Valley Park.
But the latest post about the would-be “dynamiter” seemed to pique curiosity more than others, with readers commenting, “Is there (a) police report we can see?” and “Did they catch them?”
The Gazette dug into our archives — stored on microfilm at Penrose Library — to find out what was reported about the failed plot at the time.
“Death of Seventeen Employees Averted by Miracle” a subhead read on the front page of The Gazette on July 6, 1903, the day after the plot.
Authorities were alerted to the plot after “a terrific explosion” shook the plant’s main building at 2 a.m. on July 5. Because the city was still celebrating the Fourth of July holiday at the time, most people “dismissed” the rumble as an “unusually heavy charge of power” from fireworks displays, the story said.
The next morning, 75 pounds of dynamite was found scattered at the base of the north side of the plant. Police concluded that, “in some mysterious manner the plans of the dynamiter had gone wrong at the last moment” and only one stick seemed to explode.
Dynamite explodes downward, the article explained, so had the culprit placed the lit dynamite stick on top of a pile, the explosion “would have left scarce one brick upon the other” at the plant. But because the stick was ignited from the bottom of the pile, the force of the blast only scattered the other 149 sticks, without exploding them, and blew out 20 windows.
Had the explosion taken place as planned, it would have collapsed the north wall of the plant and “crushed like an eggshell” a nearby cottage where employees slept overnight, killing an estimated 17 people, the article said. The damage also would have totaled over $500,000 and left Colorado Springs, Colorado City and Manitou Springs in the dark “for a long period of time,” it said.
At the time of the article, police had not identified a suspect. The Colorado Springs Electric Company was offering a $5,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the guilty person(s) involved.
It’s unknown if the case was solved.
Contact the writer at 719-636-0362 or find her on Twitter: @njKaitlinDurbin.