The United States Cartridge Company explosion occurred on July 29 1903, in present-day Lowell, Massachusetts.
[1] On the morning of July 29, 1903, U.S. Cartridge employees went to the building to remove the company's cans so that carpenters could work the floor.
The explosions killed 17 people and the men who were working closest to the building when it exploded were so badly dismembered that their bodies were never found.
[3] Judge Samuel P. Hadley of the Lowell Police Court presided over an inquest into the deaths caused by the explosions.
[4] According to Hadley's report, the disaster was caused by carpentry foreman Clarendon Goodwin, who poured an unknown substance onto the floor to clean it.