Jellico Public Library

09/01/2026

We'll look at an interesting sideline to the Jellico Dynamite Explosion of Friday, September 21, 1906. This one has always intrigued me (Mark J. Tidwell). And right off, I'll say, this will leave more questions than answers.
The J.H. Sparks Circus was in town in preparation for what I would suspect would have been Friday and Saturday shows. But I have never seen an authentic schedule. The circus train was in the joint Southern Railway and Louisville & Nashville Railroad yard in downtown Jellico. Sparks Circus was said to move its show about the country on twenty rail cars transporting its big top, animals, clowns, wagons, and entertainment paraphernalia. By 1906, the circus was managed by Charles and Clifton Sparks as founder John Sparks had been killed in 1903 by a circus lion.
The circus crew was in Jellico to put on a show. But in a twist of fate, the circus was presented a show of destruction and mayhem they scarcely could have imagined when 22,000 pounds of dynamite let go in close proximity to the circus train.
There is no mention of how the circus dealt with the chaos in contemporary news accounts of the day. Needless to say, the circus train moved along to whatever destination was next on its schedule as there was not much use remaining in the obliterated town.
Sparks Circus would later become forevermore entwined in Tennessee's history when "Big Mary", a five-ton Asian elephant who'd entertained thousands of circus goers, safely, for years, killed Walter "Red" Eldridge, her newly hired handler of but two days service, on September 12, 1916, in Kingsport, TN. Mary was taken to trial at Erwin, TN, found guilty of murder, and hanged by a 100 ton railroad wrecker. Mary had stopped to eat a watermelon rind when the inexperienced handler is said to have used a sharp metal hook which contacted a tooth which had an abscess in Mary's mouth.
I wonder if Big Mary was in Jellico on the explosion day? Big Mary had been with the Sparks Circus since 1898 and served until she was "sentenced" in 1916.
I wonder how the circus animals reacted to the explosion?
I wonder how the circus entertainers dealt with such a scene of chaos?
I can only imagine as that was 120 years ago this month. All involved are long since gone, and there are no known written accounts from the circus's point of view. "Murderous Mary's" story endures for the ages, while the memory of J.H. Spark's Circus and the Jellico Dynamite Explosion of September 21, 1906 have been dimmed by time's passage.
Attached images are from random internet sources on Sparks Circus History............

08/31/2026

So far, as per the Jellico Dynamite Explosion of September 21, 1906, we've touched on:
*The invention and power of dynamite.
*The heavy use of dynamite in mines near Jellico.
*The power of dynamite in 1906 verses today's dynamite.
*A boxcar load of 22,000-24,000 pounds of dynamite and nitroglycerine being brought into the Jellico railyard via Southern Railway from Keystone Powder of Pennsylvania on September 20, 1906.
Now, let's get a feel of the early morning scene on Friday, September 21, 1906.
Switch engine 277 was at work in the yard, though its actual location at the time of the explosion was hotly debated in court. Southern engines 680 and 686 were in the yard. An L&N engine was in the yard. The Proctor Coal Company engine as well as the engine for the tannery are mentioned in testimonies.
At any rate, there was a lot of normal railroad activity occurring in the railyard right up to the morning taking an explosive turn. Rail cars were being kicked, bumped and shunted. On top of that, John H. Sparks Circus train had come into town for a big top show. It's cars were being relocated from the "barn track" to another track.
Outside the railyard "housewives sang as they went about their duties, strong men laid their hands to the tasks of the day, while happy children tripped their way lightly to the schoolhouse". Then, it all changed as if the flash of converging lightning bolts rocked town in an upheaval of flying debris that seemed incomprehensible! Buildings crumbled. Roofs were lifted. Glass shards, splinters, railroad rocks, rails, crossties, train wheels and engine parts rained down upon Jellico, Kentucky and Jellico, Tennessee from literally hundreds of feet in the air. People were "atomized" as the newspapers later called it. The morning's bright promise was obliterated along with a great deal of the town's infrastructure in virtually the wink of a human eye.
We'll look at the POSSIBLE causes of the explosion in upcoming posts. I well tell you ahead of time, NO DEFINITIVE CAUSE was ever fully proven in the years of court proceedings and investigations that followed. We can not possibly peel back all the layers of that momentous day and solve the historical equation now. All the people that were involved with the Jellico Explosion of September 21, 1906 are long gone. Testimonies sometimes conflicted. One thing that is certain though, the 30 foot deep by 100 feet long crater where the dynamite car once sat, left no ifs, ands, or buts about the power of dynamite!

08/31/2026

08/28/2026

In our research of the Jellico Dynamite Explosion of September 21, 1906, we find that Keystone Powder Company of Pennsylvania shipped the dynamite to Jellico. A 36-40 foot vintage Pennsylvania railroad car found its way south and ended up "smackdab" in downtown Jellico. I do not know the particulars of the boxcar's travels from Pennsylvania to say Knoxville, but S.R. Yerkes, Southern Railway conductor, testified in Federal Court about his trip to Jellico with the explosive cargo. Knoxville News Sentinel, June 13, 1907, as the trial dragged on: "I am a Southern conductor and live at Lonsdale. I am nephew of Honorable J. W. Yerkes, commissioner of Internal Revenue. My train took out the car of dynamite that exploded. I had a car of dynamite and a car of pig iron and thirty-four empties. The two loaded cars were in the middle of the train. I had eleven cars when I got to Jellico. When I got to Jellico the dynamite car was next to the engine and the pig iron was next to it. On account of switching and cutting cars, the loaded cars were next to the engine. I ran down the main line of the yard and backed up to the side track and left my cars standing there. I don't know if the several cars were uncoupled. The pig iron was next to the dynamite car. I left Jellico at 10:30 o'clock the night before the explosion. When at Powell Station, I heard of the explosion." The witness gave the number of all eleven cars left at Jellico. The dynamite and pig iron car, he testified were left about where the explosion occurred. There was a large yellow card of warning on the car and the car was properly sealed, he testified. Cross examined: "On the north end there was nothing to protect the car and on the south was a car of pig iron. For some distance I hauled the dynamite car next to the engine. Oscar Cox, brakeman on Yerkes train testified he was with the dynamite car and the pig iron and dynamite car were three or four lengths away from other cars on the track. Mr. Yerkes identified a large cloth banner: "Handle carefully. Explosives. Keep fire away." There was one on each end of the car and one on each side, he stated. In reply to Mr. Fowler he said that he left the dynamite car on the end of the track and near a switch.
Operator Boneveitta testified he was a train dispatcher for Southern and operated the Jellico line. He testified to train sheets and movements of trains.

So, the stage had been set for the calamitous explosion of 11 tons of volatile dynamite in the downtown Jellico railyard!

08/26/2026

Special program announcement:

08/25/2026

Internet sources say this "Tennessee Treasure" of a lady dispensed over 300 million books through her Imagination Library"! All over, as this is typed out, people have reading skills because of this program. Country music........acting...........family entertainment...........
Thanks Dolly! you were a building block of society..............

08/24/2026

Warning! Explosive content:
For the next several days, we are going to be looking into the 1866 invention of Alfred Nobel, of Geesthacht Northern Germany, which he patented in 1867. Nobel's invention, which replaced black powder for blasting, coined dynamite, would indeed become part and parcel of Smithburg/Jellico's daily life in its early years. Dynamite blasted railroad cuts on which rails would be laid leading to Jellico. In all the surrounding hills, dynamite was carefully toted underneath the mountains in innumerable mineshafts where its potent power was used to dislodge coal from its tightly compacted beds. As the coal industry boomed, both literally and figuratively, more and more and yet more of Nobel's invention flowed through Jellico's joint Southern Railway and Louisville and Nashville Railroad yard. It was then dispensed throughout the mine fields to do its closely controlled bidding by skilled mine laborers who knew how to handle it's power.
All seemed well with the process. Busy town folk took little note of the powerful commodity, living in close proximity with it day in and day out. Apparently no one had considered the potential for disaster in the bustling downtown. That's until the morning of September 21, 1906, a day that dawned as a normal Friday morning for the town, then instantaneously took a literal explosive turn in one of the most calamitous events to ever happen in an Appalachian community. According to survivor Dr. R. A. McFerron, "All clocks and watches in the city stopped at 17 minutes to 8 o'clock, the time of the explosion, and so violent was the shock that people ten miles away ran from their houses fearing an earthquake."
Let's look at what Professor Charles E. Monroe, "the great naval expert on explosives, as to the explosive power of dynamite and nitroglycerine", testified in United State Circuit Court that was let loose upon an unsuspecting Jellico:
"There were in the car that exploded at Jellico, 400 cases of of fifty pounds each of 38 percent dynamite and fifty cases of fifty pounds each of nitroglycerine. This made 24,000 pounds of explosives that were exploded at Jellico."
For many years, I have always seen in print the figure of 22,000 pounds of dynamite, or 11 tons. I was surprised to find this exact packing list from Keystone Powder Company , testified to on June 15, 1907. (If you do the math of the above description per Monroe, it does add up to 22,500 pounds so maybe the 24,000 pounds is a misprint in the paper.)
We'll be looking into the Jellico Explosion of September 21, 1906, coming up on 120 years ago, over the coming days.
Meantime, see images for information about the particulars of 1906 manufactured dynamite verses today's dynamite.