Oil fields relied on nitroglycerin, at dear cost

LIMA - There was a time when the ground trembled - when the city literally shook.

Around the end of the 19th century, oil men discovered nitroglycerin and used it to keep their wells flowing in the region.

The compound's use in the petroleum industry goes back to 1866, when a man known as Col. E.A.L. Roberts first used nitroglycerin to increase oil production.

Roberts' innovation increased his oil output by an estimated 1,200 percent, according to accounts, causing gushers. Because of its success, he patented the use of the nitroglycerin "torpedoes" on oil wells.

One of the earliest accounts of nitroglycerin's use in this region goes back to March 18, 1886, when a shock was felt in Harrod.

A little more than a month later, on April 28, 1886, Lima had its first major explosion at an oil well on East Market Street, newspaper accounts say. Witnesses who observed the use of nitroglycerin said it took three minutes for oil to shoot upward "over the derrick many feet with a roar."

Newspaper articles said the wind blew the oil northwest, sending it onto several houses and through windows - ruining household goods and clothing hanging on lines.

It wasn't long after this initial "gusher" that Lima city council discussed the use of nitroglycerin at oil wells within the city.

Lima's solicitor at the time told council on July 7, 1886, that the city has power to regulate its use. However, denying it would mean "forfeiture of the property."

With nitroglycerin being used more frequently, the region saw dozens of deaths in the years that followed, some of which evoked awe.

Newspapers documented people throughout the region being "blown to atoms," "frightfully mangled" and, from the explosions at oil wells, maimed or killed.

On July 21, 1888, the instant deaths of two men at the local Rock Glycerine Co. shocked reporters at the newspaper, who reported news of the terrible explosion. In Shawnee Township, the story says, the factory exploded and instantly killed two workers. Nine days later, that same factory saw further devastation.

A July 30, 1888, article from The Daily Democratic Times said the plant exploded, leaving nothing but a hole in the ground dozens of feet deep. Debris was scattered across the countryside, and the explosion was heard and felt all over the city.

In a March 12, 1890, article reporting on the death of L.P. Mitchell, of Bradford, the mere mention of nitroglycerin cleared several men from a building.

Mitchell was handling nitroglycerin when he said "this is getting pretty warm."

Within a "second," the article says, those standing around in the place cleared out leaving only him inside. An explosion soon followed and only a portion of Mitchell's remains were found, including "his feet, and several pounds of fragments of bone and flesh."

Throughout the 1890s and into the first decade of the 1900s, there were tales in and around Lima of "terrible and deadly explosions," or souls being "hurled into eternity" within the "twinkling of an eye." Some accounts described it as being "blown into shreds of flesh and bones" or "blown to atoms."

The more powerful explosions were occasionally mistaken for earthquakes. There were near misses, too.

Eventually, the popularity of the unstable and dangerous compound, once a success in restarting the flow of oil, died out - ending an era of explosive bloodshed.