Albany’s Explosive History with Dynamite, Part I

It was a windy, brisk afternoon in January 1883 and the workers in the dynamite packing houses of Giant Powder Company were cold.

The foreman ordered one of the workers to rake the fire under a nearby boiler that supplied heat, and add more coal. As this task was carried out, a gust of wind blew a hot coal into a transport car filled with loose powder.

The result was a chain reaction: the transport car exploded, followed by the packing houses—a half dozen of them—one by one. The workers took shelter in the mixing house, but unfortunately this structure blew up next.

Down at the wharf the driver of a wagonload of dynamite jumped into the water seconds before the wagon exploded. Then burning brands from the mixing house set one of the schooners afire while it was being loaded with dynamite.  

Workers quickly scattered, except for one, who miraculously ran out with a sack and beat out the flames on the dynamite boxes—this would be the only good news of the day.

A total of 37 Chinese workers, as well as the assistant superintendent were killed and nearly all of the plant was destroyed.

This was not the first explosion at Fleming’s Point (site of today’s racetrack), and it wouldn’t be the last, but it aptly demonstrated the dangers associated with the powder plants located in the Albany area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Dynamite manufacturing began in America 16 years earlier when the Giant Powder Company licensed the patent of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel (of Nobel Prize fame) and began operating near San Francisco. In fact, for many years "giant powder" was a synonym for dynamite in the United States.

Dynamite was essential to both gold mining operations and bedrock construction in California, including the building of railroads and dams. Finding a suitable location to manufacture it, however, was problematic as the factories had a habit of blowing apart.  

Giant Powder had two locations in the San Francisco area (Glen Canyon and the sand dunes south of today’s Golden Gate Park) before explosions and resulting opposition forced it to move elsewhere. In 1879, the company relocated to Fleming’s Point along today’s Albany shoreline. At the time, this area was quite rural and considered far removed from the major cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the accidents continued. Operations lasted barely six months before another major explosion killed over 20 employees, destroyed six buildings and damaged other structures outside the plant.  

Giant rebuilt at this site two more times, once after the 1883 explosion and again after a serious calamity in 1892. The latter would prove to be one of the largest Bay Area dynamite disasters of the era.

Albany’s history with dynamite will be continued in the next column.