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#Post#: 71--------------------------------------------------
GRAIN EXPLOSION LED TO HUGE RALSTON PURINA FIRE
By: Diable Fire Date: January 27, 2011, 3:21 pm
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By Tim O'Neil - ST. LOUIS — Posted: 01/10/2010 3:00 AM
On Jan. 10, 1962, all the talk was about bitter cold. At 3 p.m.,
with the temperature only 4 degrees,
Carson Crocker was cutting a customer's hair at 702 Chouteau
Avenue. Police officer Kenneth
Jones tried to stay warm in his patrol car one block away. Major
Nesbit worked inside the Ralston
Purina feed mill that towered over the neighborhood just south
of downtown.
The quiet chill was shattered at 3:20 p.m., when a grain-dust
explosion ripped through the Ralston
mill, at Seventh and Gratiot streets. The blast blew open
Crocker's front door, showered airborne
debris around Jones' car and threw Nesbit across the room. "I
heard this 'whoom' and there was
fire everywhere," Nesbit said. "I crawled until I could see and
then I cut out of there."
It was the beginning of one of St. Louis' biggest fires, and one
of the wildest nights ever for the St.
Louis Fire Department. In temperatures that quickly froze their
water sprays, firefighters fought two
general-alarm fires and handled 44 other calls. For a time, the
department had only seven pumpers
in reserve for a city of nearly 750,000 people.
At Ralston, the blast killed two workers. Fire quickly raced
through the labyrinth of Checkerboard
Square, the company's signature location since 1896.
Firefighters on 22 pumpers took stations
around the widening blaze. A captain died of a heart attack.
Then at 6:39 p.m., a fire broke out in the Ambassador-Kingsway
Hotel, West Pine Boulevard and
Kingshighway. Twenty minutes later, the department began sending
the first of 15 pumpers to a
major fire at the Musical Arts Building in the Gaslight Square
entertainment district.
Fire Chief James Mullen ordered all off-duty firefighters to
work. "At 8 p.m., we were really hurting,"
Mullen said.
As firefighters labored overnight at Ralston and Gaslight
Square, the temperature fell below zero.
Next morning, with the temperature at minus 7, sunshine played
brilliantly on sparkling ice formations
covering the fire scenes. But John Woods, a Ralston employee,
was dead. So was fire Capt.
Roy Simpson. Ralston employee Sherrill Parker was missing.
Thirty-six Ralston employees and 22
firefighters were injured.
For nearly a week, firefighters poured 29 million gallons of
water onto the Ralston ruins. Parker's
body wasn't found until two weeks after the fire.
Ralston pondered rebuilding the downtown mill, then chose to
build the office tower and complex
that exists today. On Jan. 1, 2002, a late-night fire gutted the
top floor of the 15-story tower. It was
16 degrees that night.
City firefighters answered 44 other fire calls on Jan. 10, 1962,
many
caused by overheated furnaces and malfunctioning space heaters
as St.
Louisans tried to fight the frigid cold. But Ralston was not the
only fivealarm
fire that night.
At 7 p.m., a fire began in the Musical Arts Building in the
city's Gaslight
Square. The building was home to the Three Fountains Restaurant
and the
Laughing Buddha tavern. By 8 p.m., with 22 pumpers at Ralston
and 15 at
the Musical Arts, the Fire Department was down to seven reserve
fire
trucks. Off-duty firefighters who were called in by Chief James
Mullen used
some of the older equipment that had been stored in reserve.
Other major calls that evening included fire and smoke at the
old
Ambassador-Kingsway Hotel, at West Pine Boulevard and
Kingshighway;
and at Oakley Products Corp., 7017 Manchester Avenue, where fire
Capt.
Fred Langwith was injured in the collapse of a roof. (Lloyd
Spainhower/
Post-Dispatch)
Story and Black & White Photos by : Color Photos by John Sachen
Personal recollections: Barb, who had been with Ralston Purina
in the development lab, was in the
Blood Chemistry Lab at Barnes Hospital when the explosion
occurred. After a phone call she was
released early to see if she could help moving the lab animals
at Ralston.
The animals had been moved when we arrived on the west side of
the incident at 4:30 pm (see the
lead photo taken of the west side at that time) but Chief Mullen
was already anticipating a long
stand. As his car went by us he asked if Barb could pick up hot
dogs, buns and chilly for the new
canteen bus recently donated by the bus company and just
equipped by the Fire Department Shop
with a counter, refrigerator, stoves, sink and extra heaters.
Barb returned about 45 minutes later with the whole car
literally filled with food and worked the
canteen until 9:30 pm. Everyone who came into the canteen had to
be assisted out of their gear by
other firefighters using a spanner as an ice pick to free the
snaps. Most everyone who came in just
sat for fifteen minutes drinking coffee and thawing out.
Since Barb didn’t need any help, Chief Mullen send me to the
STLFD trailer out front (see the second
and third photos) where our put-together crew of pipemen and
truckies threw water until we
were relieved at 7:30 pm for a coffee and hot dog break. St.
Louis built two trailers for just such
situations. Each had a single axle, two wagon pipe type master
stream nozzles and when supplied
with up to six 3” lines could flow from up to 1800 gpm.
The trailers could be easily moved by hand and with the heavy
duty jacks down on each corner
were stable even on cobble stones or in a muddy vacant lot (see
photos on page 7). The second
trailer was used on the west side of the Ralston fire along with
more hose wagons and hook & ladders.
The color photo on page two was taken later when the steam
thawing generator was still at
work on the hook & ladders and hose wagons that were frozen by
up to 6” of ice.
The other rig in the bottom photo on page one is a hose wagon.
Each hose wagon, assembled by
the shop from a pumper retired from first line service, had a
regular driver on each shift, a split
hose bed loaded straight lay with 750’ of 3” on each side and a
master stream nozzle.
In 1962 STLFD had 9 Battalion Chiefs, 43 Pumpers, 23 Hook &
Ladders, 12 Hose Wagons and
one Rescue Squad plus a crew and apparatus at the airport.
When the first alarm was struck for the Musical Arts fire most
of the remaining hose wagons, reserve
pumpers and several first line pumpers not in use at Ralston had
been placed in service by
recalled firefighters. The fire in the Musical Arts Building was
knocked down that night but the Ralston
fire continued for days and crews worked the lines on the fire
continuously for days.
John Sachen 1/10/10
TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE PLEASE CLICK ON THE BELOW LINK
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#Post#: 72--------------------------------------------------
GRAIN EXPLOSION LED TO HUGE RALSTON PURINA FIRE PART 2
By: Diable Fire Date: January 27, 2011, 3:37 pm
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SOME PICTURES OF THE ABOVE FIRE THAT YOU CAN VIEW WITHOUT HAVING
TO OPEN GOOGLE DOCUMENTS.
ALL PICTURES CREDITED TO ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHER
HTML http://images109.fotki.com/v128/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452020E-vi.jpg
HTML http://images59.fotki.com/v112/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452022E-vi.jpg
HTML http://images54.fotki.com/v1593/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452023E-vi.jpg
HTML http://images17.fotki.com/v62/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452025E-vi.jpg
#Post#: 73--------------------------------------------------
GRAIN EXPLOSION LED TO HUGE RALSTON PURINA FIRE PT 3
By: Diable Fire Date: January 27, 2011, 3:43 pm
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HERE ARE A FEW MORE PICTURES
ALL PICTURES CREDITED TO ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHER
HTML http://images16.fotki.com/v3/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452026E-vi.jpg
HTML http://images54.fotki.com/v451/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452028E-vi.jpg
HTML http://images17.fotki.com/v62/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452029E-vi.jpg
HTML http://images57.fotki.com/v496/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452031E-vi.jpg
#Post#: 74--------------------------------------------------
GRAIN EXPLOSION LED TO HUGE RALSTON PURINA FIRE PART 4
By: Diable Fire Date: January 27, 2011, 3:48 pm
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LAST SECTION OF PICTURES
ALL PICTURES CREDITED TO ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHER
HTML http://images57.fotki.com/v496/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452032E-vi.jpg
HTML http://images59.fotki.com/v123/photos/9/1737549/9444212/27452035E-vi.jpg
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