Dozens Die In 1912 Locomotive Boiler Explosion

Federal investigators and a blue-ribbon committee pressed ahead on March. 24, 1912 with probes of the worst man-made calamity in San Antonio since the fall of the Alamo.    Federal investigators and a blue-ribbon committee pressed ahead on March. 24, 1912 with probes of the worst man-made calamity in San Antonio since the fall of the Alamo.

    (Credit for bringing this long forgotten tragedy to light must go to Mike Cox.  A short chapter in his 2006 book Texas Disasters and contemporary newspaper accounts were the basis for this column.)

    Following a Christmas week wreck near Seguin, Number 704 had been undergoing repairs in the Southern Pacific roundhouse on the eastern edge of downtown San Antonio.  After three months in the shop, the 200,000-pound, ten-wheel steam locomotive was ready for the mandatory test run and, if all went well, return to service.

    No one was better qualified than senior engineer Walter Jourdan to put Number 704 through its paces.  At 63 he had more years with his hand on the throttle than anybody else in the entire Southern Division of SP.

    Jourdan was in no hurry on the morning of March 18, 1912.  Mindful of the fact that most of the repairs had been performed by “replacement” workers, he took more time than usual checking for damage the “scabs,” as the union called them, might have missed.    

    Only when Number 704 passed his personal inspection, did Jourdan give the order to fire up the boiler.  While he waited for the locomotive to build up a head of steam, the experienced engineer walked around the iron horse with a wrench and oil can.

    At precisely 8:55 a.m., the boiler exploded.  Cox described what happened next:  “…launching the huge cylinder through the roundhouse roof like a rocket lying on its side, breaking the big wheels from their hubs, and sending assorted pieces of iron, levers, pipes, rods, and other shrapnel-like hunks of metal in every direction at a deadly velocity.”

    Engineer Jourdan and as many as three dozen other workers in the huge brick building never knew what happened.  They were killed instantly, their bodies torn apart by the fantastic force of the blast.

    The explosion shook the city of 100,000 to its roots.  Residents rushed outdoors in the mistaken but understandable belief that San Antonio had been hit by an earthquake.

    Neighborhoods within a half-mile radius of the roundhouse suddenly became ground zero.  First was the shock wave, which “pulled trees from the ground, blew out windows, and rammed debris through the walls of houses….”  Then came the iron rain as fragments of the shattered locomotive fell back to earth.

    A massive chunk of the boiler landed between two homes gouging out a four-foot deep crater.  A group of children had been playing on that very spot just minutes earlier and surely would have been crushed to death had they not gone inside for breakfast.

    The front end of the locomotive reduced a frame house to kindling and badly injured the elderly resident.  A woman in her front yard barely missed being struck an air tank and a human torso that fell out of the sky only seconds apart.    

    Human remains were scattered over a wide area.  “Parts of jackets and coats and trousers containing portions of mangled limbs were found hundreds of yards from the immediate scene of the explosion,” read a report in the Dallas Morning News.  “Here and there heaps of blood-covered human flesh were located and covered with tarpaulins.”

    The first firemen and police officers to reach what was left of the roundhouse did not expect to find any survivors.  But P.J. Stoudt, who had the presence of mind to dive under a bench, was alive and remarkably well in the rubble as was Robert Lipscomb, who was blown 30 feet by the blast and awoke with a dead co-worker’s hat in his hand.   

    Others not killed by the explosion suffered an even more terrible fate.  Oil from a ruptured fuel car caught fire and burned them alive before the blaze could be put out.

    Relatives beat the authorities to the hellish site.  According to a heart-rending report, “Women came upon the bodies of their husbands and children upon those of their fathers.  There were scenes of horror, bitter weeping and fainting women on all sides.”

    Fort Sam Houston responded quickly to the emergency sending members of the Third Cavalry on horseback to aid overwhelmed local authorities.  The army also provided medical personnel and horse-drawn ambulances.

    Although 26 bodies were positively identified, bits and pieces were no help in the days before DNA and forensic science.  The best guess was that another 10 or 15 perished with approximately 50 more sustaining injuries from which they recovered.

    In the anguished days following the disaster, public opinion blamed union saboteurs.  But this theory was ruled out early in the parallel investigations by the Interstate Commerce Commission and a citizens committee.

    The final report of the ICC was released on May 17.  It said in part:  “It is our conclusion that this explosion was due to excessive steam pressure which was caused by an employee (of the railroad) tightening the adjusting screw of the safety valves, resulting in an accumulation of steam pressure beyond the endurance of the boiler.”

    In other words, human error was responsible for the horror of 1912.  

    Bartee Haile welcomes your comments, questions and suggestions at haile@pdq.net or P.O. Box 152, Friendswood, TX 77549.  And come on by www.twith.com for a visit!