1907 - Seven Killed By Explosion

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Roanoke Times - June 28, 1907

SEVEN KILLED BY EXPLOSION

   Lynchburg, Val, June 27 -- Seven men were killed and four 
seriously if not fatally injured by the premature explosion of 
dynamite on the Tidewater Railway Tuesday afternoon at a point known 
as Pola Cut, about twelve miles from Brookneal.
   Six of the men killer were Italian laborers, whose names cannot be 
learned here, and the seventh was Superintendent Cornelius Sullivan 
of Lamont, Ill.
   Three of the four men injured were also Italians and the fourth 
was the engineer in charge of the dinky engine, which was standing 
nearby at the time of the explosion. The engine was also badly damaged.
   The exact cause of the explosion will never be known, as all of 
the men who were engaged in loading the blast were killed. 
Superintendent Sullivan was engaged in arranging the blast and he was 
terribly mangled by the explosion, while several of the victims were 
practically blown to pieces.
   A coroner's inquest was held Tuesday evening, but no light was 
thrown on the accident and the verdict was that the deaths of all of 
the men were due purely from accidental causes.
   It was impossible to secure any of the details of the accident in 
the city yesterday.
   The body of Superintendent Sullivan was brought to the city at 
noon yesterday on the Durham train, and it was shipped to his home in 
Illinois in the afternoon.
   The accident occurred on the contract which is being executed by 
the McDearmot Construction Company on which 200 men were engaged 
though most of them were remote from the scene of the trouble where 
it took place.

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- Ron Davis, Roger Link