Featured Photo above courtesy of Fred Cox, 2021
By Joyce Rovetta
When you operate a dynamite factory, the unintended blast of your product is always of concern. So, the Du Pont Company had quite a few rules at the Louviers factory to prevent any such accident when they first opened. Employees were to have no metal on their clothing. They wore felt shoes into the factory and there was no smoking and no matches. Also, only 3 men at a time were allowed into the storage room so if there was an accident, only 3 died.
Buildings were widely separated by dirt banks or hills and located in hollows so one explosion would not spread to another warehouse.
The workers themselves were aware of these dangers from the 6000 pounds of nitroglycerine stored in one building. Despite this, in 1908 shortly after opening the plant at Louviers, a small explosion killed one man. Employees immediately began to fight the fire in order to keep it from spreading. Lesson learned.
But three years later in 1911, another accidental explosion killed three men and the force of the blasted wreaked the nearest buildings and broke windows for miles around. The terrific concussion was felt as far away as Denver. Of the three men who died, two were single, but one left a wife and six children.
The message did get through to all workers and there were few additional fatal accidents at the Louviers plant from that date until February 6, 1940 when 2 people died in an unexplained explosion. Just before the plant closed in 1971 there was an accident in which 4 were killed. See the link to that newspaper article HERE.
The physical factory is long gone now, as are traces of the area around the plant. The tiny hamlet of Louviers with many original homes from has survived, as has the Administration building.
Former church, now a private residence
Above Photos Courtesy of Fred Cox 2021
Today the former administration building serves peacefully as a meeting room on the first floor and a Douglas County library on the second floor.
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