Powder House Island

Powder House Island (right) and Fox Island (left) in a 2005 aerial photograph

In the late 19th century, the Dunbar & Sullivan Company had a number of government contracts to widen and deepen shipping channels in the Detroit River, including the Livingstone Channel and Lime Kiln Crossing.[9][10]^: 46:47 This work involved large amounts of blasting, due to limestone bedrock in the area; the nearby Fox Island was a natural choice for storage of explosive compounds.[9][10]^: 47 However, in December 1879, the three tons of nitroglycerin stored on Fox Island detonated without warning.[11][12][13] The resultant shock wave destroyed all structures on Fox Island, leaving a crater 60 ft (18 m) wide and 16 ft (4.9 m) deep, shattered the windows of nearby houses, and was clearly audible in St. Clair some 60 mi (97 km) to the north.[11][14]

In March 1880, an injunction was issued by the Wayne County chancery court in the case of Walter Crane v. Charles F. Dunbar et al., forbidding Dunbar and Daniel B. Reaume (the operators of the company) from "storing nitroglycerine or any other explosive material on Fox Island".[15]

In order to continue work on the channel, it was necessary to store the explosives somewhere; Dunbar and Reaume requested that the injunction be dissolved,[9] but another explosion occurred at the Lime-Kiln Crossing worksite in September 1880, which shook houses in Amherstburg "to their foundations", and could be felt in Essex Center 16 mi (26 km) away.[16] Their request was denied in November, and it became evident that a new location would need to be found or created.[17][18]

After the injunction was issued, Dunbar & Sullivan resorted to storing their explosives on a scow anchored several hundred yards to the east of Fox Island.[10]^: 47 While this allowed work to continue, it was not a permanent solution, and the scow had limited capacity; Dunbar & Sullivan had to purchase raw materials and manufacture dynamite, Hercules powder, and other explosive materials themselves at the work site.[18] Storing dynamite would require a much larger facility, which was only practical if situated on solid land.[10]^: 47

While Dunbar & Sullivan had been forbidden to store explosives on Fox Island, the location of the worksite meant that there were few other places to do so. The southern extension of Stony Island had not yet been constructed,[6] and all other land within a reasonable distance of the worksite was inhabited. By 1881, houses had been built along the shore of Grosse Ile, and Hickory and Sugar Island were being used as campgrounds;[19] on the Canadian side, Bois Blanc Island was being used for summer vacation homes.[20] It was therefore decided that an artificial island would be constructed next to Fox Island, to which the 1880 injunction would not apply (having only stipulated that Dunbar & Sullivan not store explosives on Fox Island specifically).[15]

The risks involved in manufacturing and handling explosive devices on the putative artificial island would be largely identical to those incurred by the Fox Island facility—the explosions there had caused damage for miles around, and the new site was only a couple hundred yards away. No additional structures or mechanisms were planned to help contain or redirect the energy of an unintentional detonation; the primary difference between the two sites was that one of them had not existed when the ruling was made, and was therefore (ostensibly) not subject to it.[15][10]^: 47

It is unclear why government engineering authorities approved of this reasoning, or indeed that they even did; the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals later said that "no formal action appears to have been taken by the government or any officer thereof, giving the defendant the right to erect the island [...] all that was shown was at most a verbal permission and an acquiescence on the part of the government officers in charge of the Lime Kiln Crossing work".[10]^: 48

Regardless, by May 1881, construction was underway: between eight and ten carpenters, under the direction of John P. Jones, were employed in the construction of a scow.[18] This scow was tasked with carrying rock from channel excavation to a site several hundred yards to the east of Fox Island, and dumping it on the river floor.[18] Eventually, the scow was scuttled atop the rock; the resultant mound was high enough to rise above water level.[10]^: 47

Once the island was large and solid enough to permit the erection of structures, the dynamite operations of Dunbar & Sullivan were moved there. While it was initially referred to as "Dunbar Island",[18] it also went by the name of "Dynamite Island"; eventually it became known as "Powder House Island".[10]^: 46

Shanties were erected to contain and shelter the large quantities of dynamite required for channel excavation. They caught fire on 21 April 1895, and the island "burned to the water's edge".[21] In 1904, it was reported that Canadian police had found American poachers, illegally fishing for sturgeon, living in a shack on the island.[22] By 1906, 20 short tons (18,000 kg) of dynamite was stored on the island, in shanties of questionable quality; a witness was quoted as saying "you could throw a cat through the cracks".[10]^: 47

Powder House Island, as it appeared on a 1906 USGS map

On 27 June 1906, Dunbar's dynamite facilities exploded again, this time with 20 short tons (18,000 kg) of dynamite.[23][24][10]^: 47 Powder House Island was shaken by an explosion "so terrific in nature that the residents of the town and pleasure-seekers on adjacent islands thought it was an earthquake visitation".[23] Two men, Henry Rogers and Theodore Perry, were injured; they had just left the island, and were 100 yd (91 m) from the shore, when a sudden explosion launched them from their catboat, tore the clothes from their backs, and caused severe burns and lacerations.[23][24] An "immediate cessation of pleasure" occurred among people in the immediate vicinity. Charles Stedman, a vacationer from Indiana on a trip with his wife and children to Bois Blanc Island, said:

We were sprawled out in the shade of a tree [...] when the shock came. It was the most effective transformation scene I ever witnessed. The river in the vicinity of the dynamite houses was instantly lashed into a seething torrent. Rocks and spray shot hundreds of feet into the air, and the report was followed immediately by a shower of white that I afterward learned was limestone. Big trees were uprooted by the shock, and the one under which we were camped rocked ominously. All was confusion on the picnic grounds. Women shrieked in dismay, and repentant men fell upon their knees and began to offer fervent invocations for divine intercession.[25]

In the aftermath of the explosion, thousands of windows were shattered on Grosse Ile alone, plate glass was broken 3 mi (4.8 km) away in Trenton, and work on the shipping channel was delayed due to the loss of blasting equipment.[25] The shockwave from the explosion was felt as far as Cleveland, Ohio, 85 mi (137 km) away on the other side of Lake Erie.[26] The island itself was described as a "wreck", which would need to be rebuilt with many scowloads of stone and mud.[26] The cause of the explosion was not known with certainty, as it had been a hot day, but it was suspected to be related to Rogers and Perry firing revolvers near the dynamite storage area immediately before it exploded (despite Rogers' claim several days later that the revolvers had been loaded with blanks).[24][25][27]

The men said they had been shooting with a revolver, and it is supposed that one of the bullets touched off the fireworks. While admitting that the explosion may have been caused by the heat, experts do not think this theory at all plausible.[25]

The explosion has been the subject of misinformation: some contemporary accounts (such as a 28 June article in the Detroit Free Press) pushed the untrue claim that the explosion had occurred on Fox Island.[23] On 6 July, the Yale Expositor, while correctly reporting that the explosion had occurred on Dynamite Island, claimed that there had been 12 short tons (11,000 kg) of explosives across two artificial islands, and that "a keg of one of the explosives was hurled into the central part of Grosse Ile and there exploded in a clump of woods, tearing century old oaks into splinters".[28] An article in the Trenton Tribune would later falsely state that the explosion happened in 1907.[7] These baseless claims have been debunked by fact-checkers; court proceedings concerning the lawsuit (Henderson v. Sullivan) related to the explosion state that it took place on 26 July 1906, from twenty tons of dynamite, on a single island (Powder House Island). These details were not disputed by the plaintiff, defendant, or judiciary.[10]

A 800 lb (360 kg) charge of dynamite being used for construction on the Livingstone Channel, in a photo taken between 1905 and 1920

Construction began immediately to rebuild the storage sheds. However, attorney Edwin Henderson filed a petition claiming that his house on Grosse Ile had been damaged by the explosion, and on 6 July, a temporary injunction was issued against the Dunbar & Sullivan Company preventing them from storing explosives on the island.[29] Henderson requested that Dunbar & Sullivan be permanently enjoined from storing any dynamite in the Detroit River, which was denied by Judge Swan.[30] Henderson appealed the case to the United States Court of Appeals in Cincinnati,[30] which reversed the prior ruling and granted an injunction (albeit with limitations) in February 1908, with Judge Richards giving the opinion:[31]

We think it apparent from the record that a reasonable amount of dynamite, for use in the public work, might be stored on Powder House Island without injuring persons and property in the neighborhood, and to the great interest of the public in the doing of the improvement of the Detroit River now going on, and so we think that, under proper limitations, an injunction ought to be granted; the judgement of the court below is therefore reversed and the case remanded, with instructions to grant an injunction restraining the defendant from storing dynamite on the island or place described in the bill as the place where the defendant had recently been storing it, in such quantity as to create danger to the complainant or his family personally, or danger to the property, real or personal, owned by or possessed by him, at the place described in the bill as his residence on Grosse Ile.[31]

By 1908, reports indicated that the explosives used for channel blasting were being stored in a bulletproof concrete structure.[32] However, public opinion on the issue was divided, with some advocating for a total ban on dynamite storage in the area. On 5 March 1908, C. McD. Townsend, United States district engineer, held a hearing on the subject of dynamite storage on the lower Detroit River.[32] At the hearing, the residents of Grosse Ile and Hickory Island were represented by Dr. David Inglis, who expressed concern about the storage of explosives, and proposed that the matter be settled in federal court. Townsend's proposal for a compromise entailed constructing three additional islands, to store a total of 60 short tons (54,000 kg) of dynamite divided evenly between them.[31]

By March 1910, the dynamite factory on Powder House Island had returned to operation, with an output of 2 short tons (1,800 kg) per day.[33] In July of that year, several hundred passengers of the pleasure boat Wauketa were "given nearly a three hours extension of their outing" when it ran aground on the shore of a Dunbar Island:[34]

The passengers, none of whom seemed to take the occurrence very seriously, enjoyed themselves in the cool breezes counting the stars and speculating on what would happen if the dynamite magazine of Dunbar & Sullivan on the island nearby should chance to blow up.[34]

In the summer of 1911, workers continued to be employed in the factory;[35] in January 1912, a contract was carried out to fill its ice houses,[36] and in May of that year, a "full force of men" was working at the factory under an O. B. Barnes.[37]

1993 aerial photo, taken by USGS

Dunbar & Sullivan's operations on the Livingstone Channel would soon come to an end. The channel was completed, and opened to the public, in October 1912.[38][39] While the ice house and dynamite factory would again burn "to the water's edge" in 1919,[40] the company would continue to carry out dredging and excavation around the Detroit River for decades afterward. In the 1920s, it was using nearby Stony Island as a central part of its dredging and excavation operations,[7][41][42] and by 1931 work was still going on there "24 hours a day".[43][44]

By 1933, channel-deepening operations were being carried out by a George Mills Company,[45] who continued to use Powder House Island as a storage location for explosives;[46] in that year they constructed a new powder house on the island.[47] By that time, dynamite had been replaced with blasting gelatin.[45] The Windsor Star reported in March 1933 that "in spite of the safety of modern blasting gelatine, the Mills Company takes excellent care that not too much of it is on the job at one time. It never rides on the seagoing trucks, and only a small amount is kept on the job [...] the reserve stock, about 2,000 fifty-pound cases, is kept on a small island".[45]

By the 1980s, industrial activity on Powder House Island had ceased, and in 1984 it was uninhabited;[48] in 1987, the company went defunct.[49] As of 2015, Powder House Island (as well as the nearby Stony Island, also formerly owned by Dunbar & Sullivan) was owned by the State of Michigan, managed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Division as part of the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, and accessible to the public for hunting and camping.[50] The area surrounding the island is known for good perch fishing;[51][52] a 1982 report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that walleye spawned near the island.[53]^: 31