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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 2015)
COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL January 14, 2015 TOO LATE TO CLASSIFY MOVING SALE Fri-Sat 10am-7pm 814 Johnson Ave. Will continue on Monday if remaining items Offbeat Oregon History Dynamite used to be a regular part of Oregon life BY FINN J.D. JOHN For the Sentinel BINGO COUPON COTTAGE GROVE ELKS LODGE 755 North River Road Information 942-3554 PUBLIC WELCOME Every Wednesday (except Holidays) Warm Ups 6:30pm Regular Games 7:00pm Frequent Smoke Breaks, Exciting New Game Program “Bingo Burger Menu” Available 2 PROGRESSIVE JACKPOTS Bring this coupon and receive a 2nd Warm-up Pack FREE CG Everyone Can Ride to Local and Metro Destinations Providing Public, Accessible Transportation to the Region 541.942.0456 Cottage Grove, OR 97424 www.southlanewheels.org !PPLIANCES s ,AWN 'ARDEN CLEARANCE EVENT 3 DAYS ONLY Get an extra 10% off All Clearance, Closeout, Reconditioned*, and one-of-a-kind merchandise* Sale Valid 1/15/15 & 1/17/15 only * while supplies last 'ATEWAY "LVD #OTTAGE 'ROVE .EXT TO "I-ART /PEN DAYSWEEK C OTTAGE G ROVE T AX O FFICE 9A T here was a time, not so many years ago, when every Oregonian over the age of 12 had access to dynamite. Not that they could simply walk into a hardware store and buy some — although in the early years, they could. But even as late as the 1960s, the laws restricting explosives pur- chasing were mild enough that it wasn’t uncommon for farm- ers to buy the stuff for stump removal, or to work a mining claim. And you don’t have to go back too many years before that to reach a time when anybody who wanted dynamite could get some — for good purposes or bad ones. As if that weren’t enough, anyone who wanted to make his own dynamite could do so with great ease and total anonym- ity. All that was necessary was a bottle of glycerin oil, some nitric acid and a few pounds of sawdust. “A boy can make it and there is no law to prevent it,” M. Ben- nett remarked in the St. Helens Columbian newspaper in 1885. “The sale of opium and poisons are restricted, but dynamite, the greatest and most terrible de- structive engine of the 19th cen- tury, may be bought by anyone at 36 cents per pound.” This is an aspect of life in a frontier state that’s not much remembered today. Of course, personal dynamite ownership is unheard-of now. In 1970, federal legislation restricted explosives to people who’d been granted a special permit by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Today, nobody without a permit is even allowed to carry a stick of dynamite across a room, to say nothing of actually buying one or lighting it off. Not many people would dis- agree that this change is a good one. Looking back through old newspaper articles from the late 1800s and early 1900s, it’s clear that universal access to dyna- mite occasionally makes for some high drama, even in a re- mote frontier state like Oregon. $10 NEW CLIENT DISCOUNT on your 2014 Taxes The manufacture of dynamite Dynamite roasting on an open fi re Dynamite was invented in 1867, famously, by engineer and peace-prize founder Alfred Nobel in Sweden. Nobel fi gured out that although nitroglycerin was too unstable and dangerous to use for construction blast- ing, if an absorbing agent like sawdust were used to soak it up, it became relatively safe to handle. Commercial dynamite was soon widely available for any- one who wanted to blow stuff up. And by the early 1880s, ter- rorist organizations like the Irish Republican Brotherhood were already starting to use it to drive home political messages. Most dynamite at that time was made locally, since it was tricky and dangerous to trans- port. A dynamite maker would mix nitroglycerin and sawdust together and roll it up like a cigarette in heavy paper. To det- onate it, one needed a blasting cap — like a heavy fi recracker tucked into a bundle of dyna- mite sticks. Blasting caps could be set off with a burning fuse or with an electrical pulse sent from one of those plunger-type magneto detonators that Wile E. Coyote used to use in practically every Road Runner cartoon. The strength of dynamite was represented with a percentage fi gure: 50-percent dynamite is made of a 50-50 mix of ni- troglycerine and sawdust, by weight; 90-percent (also called ‘Gelatine’) is 90-10; and so on. There were some other issues, too, that made it hard for blast- ing professionals to buy life insurance. Dynamite “froze” at 45 degrees, and became unus- able. This was great for safety if you had to transport it in cold weather, but if you had a blast- ing operation to undertake when it was 25 or 30 degrees out, it meant you were probably going to be thawing your dynamite out beside a woodstove or campfi re — an activity that was just as dangerous as it sounds. That’s how Irvin Reed of Bend got his bell rung in De- cember 1905. He had 24 sticks laid out on a box near a camp- fi re while his two co-workers la- bored to drill out blasting holes for a ditch they were excavating in the frozen ground. Then, as Reed was bending over the dy- namite — probably gathering a few sticks up, intending to use them — they went off, hurl- ing him some distance and rip- ping most of the clothes off his body. Amazingly, he survived, although he was partly blinded and disfi gured by the massive blast. Occupational hazards Almost all dynamite in the 1800s was fairly safe when it was fresh, but it got more unsta- ble and dangerous the longer it sat around. That’s because over time, the nitroglycerin would leach out of the sawdust, satu- rating the paper wrapping and leaking out and pooling in the bottom of the dynamite case. Remember, the whole reason dynamite was invented was because liquid nitroglycerin was so dangerous. Any little jar could set off a box of dynamite if it had been allowed to sit long enough. The Dynamite Kid One early Oregon story in- volving dynamite, relayed by Richard Dillon in his book “Shanghaiing Days,” concerns a young man named George Banks. George was one of those rock-solid young men, poised and confi dent and morally up- standing. In the mid-1890s, he had a job working on the por- tage railroad at Cascade Locks. One day, George was down in Portland picking up a load of freight, and he missed his re- turn sailing on the riverboat. So there he was, stuck on the wharf with the crates of merchandise he was supposed to bring back — probably stuck there until the next morning. Luckily, some friendly, help- ful fellows noticed George and offered to help him out. They made a deal and soon the strangers were back with a boat of some kind (Dillon doesn’t say, but it was probably a steam launch). After the strangers had helped George load his crates onto the launch, they cast off and started heading downstream. George was puzzled by this at fi rst, un- til one of the strangers informed him — no doubt belligerently, with much fl exing of muscles, to encourage him not to try to fi ght his way out — that he was a sailor now, and they were bringing him to Astoria to put him aboard his new ship. “You ain’t gonna shanghai me,” George retorted, reaching into his pocket. “I’ll blow you to hell fi rst.” His hand came out full of blasting caps. Presumably that’s the point at which the would-be shanghaiers realized the boxes they’d helped load on board the boat were full of dynamite. They also soon thereafter learned that George’s nickname among his friends was “Dynamite Kid.” Needless to say, the boat im- mediately turned and headed upstream to the construction site, where George unloaded his cargo, paid the men as agreed, and went about his work. But stories of dynamite being used to foil crime are vanishing- ly rare compared with accounts of the stuff being used on the other side of the law. Dynamite offered magnifi cent prospects to criminals. Roadbuilding crews of all sorts tended to have it around, and some of them didn’t do a particularly good job of looking after it, so crooks quickly learned it was easy to get. We’ll talk about some of the more famous and infamous examples of dynamite-related crime in next week’s column. (Sources: Dillon, Richard. Shanghaiing Days. New York: Coward, 1961; Bend Bulle- tin, 12-15-1905; Eugene City Guard, 2-21-1885; St. Helens Columbian, 5-22-1885) Finn J.D. John teaches at Oregon State University and writes about odd tidbits of Or- egon history. To contact him or suggest a topic: fi nn2@off- beatoregon.com or 541-357- 2222. $ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM Our Community Newspaper since 1889 Cottage Grove 2015 Community Guidebook Income Taxes • Bookkeeping Quickbooks Specialist Payroll Have you upgraded your Shoppe listing? Ask us HOW! Cauleen & Laura - Owners 541-942-7070 •541-767-1841 cgtaxoffi ce@gmail.com PO Box 844 28 South 6th St. Suite C Cottage Grove It’s that time of year again!! E R O T E S R NOW OPEN EVERY W EDNESDAY AND F RIDAY FROM 10 AM -4 PM The Cottage Grove Sentinel is gearing up for one of our favorite projects: our annual Community Guidebook. The Guidebook is an excellent primer on all that Cottage Grove has to offer. Its reader- friendly listings will save time deciding who to call at City Hall, what resources are available in Cottage Grove, what community events are happening this year – and much, much more. We recommend that people keep this handy guide with their telephone book for easy access. And, the Chamber of Commerce distributes many copies to visitors and new community members every year. We plan to print 5000 copies of this full color magazine-style Guidebook. Distributed throughout South Lane County. We need volunteers for the ReStore ~ a few hours each month! Will you help? ALL ADS ARE FULL COLOR!! Ad Copy Deadline: Jan. 30th, Publication date: Feb. 18th. Habitat Offi ce and Warehouse 2155 Getty Circle ~ Unit #1 Online readers will have access to downloading the entire Guidebook. in the Cottage Grove Industrial Park South on Hwy 99 past the High School The Siuslaw News on-line readers for download! An opportunity to show the coast what we have to offer! ION S DONA T S AL WAY ! ME WEL C O Call 541.767.0358 for more information Email info@habitatcg.org ADDED BONUS: 2015 Guidebook will also be available to ( AD PRICES: $ F H B U P ) ( F W P S 4 M F O J U O F 116 N. Sixth Street · P.O. Box 35 · Cottage Grove · 942-3325
