Editing Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin (section)

===Dynamite plant catastrophe===
In the early 20th century, Pleasant Prairie was the site of a 190-acre [[DuPont]] blasting powder plant. The plant, including 40 buildings, had an ongoing record of accidents. In 1909, residents of [[Kenosha County, Wisconsin|Kenosha County]] brought suit against the company on the grounds that the plant was a public menace. The suit was won by the company.

On March 9, 1911, most of the town was destroyed by the explosion of five magazines holding 300 tons of [[dynamite]], 105,000 kegs of black [[blasting powder]], and five nearby railcars holding more dynamite housed at the plant. The explosions rendered most houses within five miles of the blast center uninhabitable. Several hundred people were injured, and three plant employees, E. S. "Old Man" Thompson, Clarence Brady and Joseph Flynt, along with Alice Finch, who dropped dead of fright, were killed. The low death toll was attributed to the plant being closed at the time of the explosion. A crater 100 feet deep was blasted under the former dynamite house. Damage estimates were put at $1,500,000,<ref>{{cite news |title=Town is Destroyed: Pleasant Prairie Wiped Out By Dynamite Explosion |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SRPD19110311.2.4&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1 |access-date=March 4, 2020 |volume=XXXVIII |issue=59 |publisher=Press Democrat |date=March 11, 1911}}</ref> equivalent to $37,000,000 in 2015. Almost equal damage was done in [[Bristol (town), Kenosha County, Wisconsin|Bristol]], four miles west of Pleasant Prairie.

The force of the explosion was felt more than 130 miles in every direction and was heard as far away as [[Ohio]] and [[Iowa]]. Many in the Midwest at first believed it was an earthquake. Residents in nearby [[Lake County, Illinois]], saw the fireball and remembering the [[Peshtigo fire]] fled their houses, jumping into [[Lake Michigan]]. Police in [[Chicago]] scoured the streets, looking for the site of a bombing. Windows were shattered as far away as [[Madison, Wisconsin]], a distance of some 85 miles. Concerns about looting and vandalism by curiosity seekers prompted Kenosha County Sheriff Andrew Stahl to impress a hundred deputies and clear the village.<ref>"Big Powder Explosion Wrecks a Small Town", ''The Day'' March 10, 2011, p.1.</ref>

It was believed the first explosion took place in the glaze house where more than 1,100 kegs of powder were dried in steel cylinders. One steel cylinder crashed through the roof of the general store of H. A. and E. A. King, tearing a hole five feet in diameter through the roof, the first and second floor and into the earth. H. A. King, in an adjoining room, was thrown to the floor unconscious by the shock. Phil Hess, a farmer near [[Truesdell, Wisconsin]] over two miles from the factory, lost his right ear, severed by a piece of flying glass as he was entering his home. J. H. Beland of Truesdell lost his eye from flying glass, and E. A. Fox, a farmer, bled heavily when a vein in his wrist was cut.

A DuPont spokesman was reported as being perplexed by the coverage of the blast, quoted as saying "explosions occur every day in [[steel mill]]s, [[flouring mill]]s and [[grain elevator]]s with hardly a line in the paper."<ref>[https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/cgi-bin/colorado?a=d&d=THD19110310-01.2.2&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------0-- TONS OF DYNAMITE EXPLODE WITH DEATH AND TERROR]</ref>

The site is the location of residential homes and the Pleasant Prairie Ball Park, which is used for softball and soccer.