A Day Burned Into Memory

Posted 2007-07-28
The Daily News Record
By Jeff Mellott

Rescuers work to pull people out of the rubble of what was once the Master’s Building off South Main Street in Harrisonburg. The Master’s Building was a kind of indoor mall with many shops, which exploded in 1947 when someone lit a match near a gas leak. Sunday is the 60th anniversary of the blast. Courtesy Photo

Norman B. Good Jr. has never experienced an earthquake.

But he said it probably feels a lot like the explosion that rocked him — and Harrisonburg’s downtown — 60 years ago on Sunday.

At the time of the blast, Good was sleeping at his South Main Street home, just across from the Master’s Building at the corner of Franklin Street.

"It felt like something had exploded under the ground," said Good, 81, who lives in Harrisonburg.

Shocked Community

Shock was the general reaction to the blast, said Juanita Taylor, 86, of Harrisonburg.

The blast, which occurred at 2:10 p.m. on July 29, 1947, killed 10 people that day and injured 30, according to Daily News-Record files. One person died later of injuries sustained in the blast, raising the death toll to 11.

"You felt sorry for the ones who were injured and you felt sorry for the families, and families that lost people," she said.

Rude Awakening

The Master’s Building, a kind of indoor mall that housed several shops, including an auto parts store and a beauty parlor, exploded when a lit match touched off a gas leak.

Across the street, Good, then 21, napped on the living room sofa in the front of the house.

His grandfather, Samuel G. Good, usually sat on the front porch but for some reason was not there that afternoon.

Good’s younger sister Elizabeth left her bedroom and headed for the front door.

"If she had been a few seconds earlier," Good said, "she would have walked into flying glass."

The explosion shattered the windows of Good’s home.

"A piece of glass in the shape of a dagger came out of the window and stuck in the top of the [living room] table," he said.

Everyone in the Good family escaped injury.

"The most saddening memory of the day was the [11] dead people, some of which I knew," he said.

Collateral Damage

The explosion broke windows at the Hardesty House, then a showroom for fine furniture. The house is across the street from where the Goods’ home stood.

The home that the Goods rented to a family next door to the Hardesty House did not fare so well.

"The explosion blew the side out of it. It didn’t hurt anybody, thank goodness," Good said.

Bodies pulled from the wreckage were placed for a time on the damaged house’s porch, he said.

"It was a bad afternoon," Good said

Passer-By

William E. Johnson of Brooklyn, N.Y., was closer to the blast.

He was window shopping along South Main Street during a bus layover in Harrisonburg, according to Daily News-Record files.

The blast sent him flying across the street and against the Asbury United Methodist Church.

Johnson was injured. As he was carried away from the blast scene, according to Daily News-Record reports, Johnson told police that would be the last time he ever window-shopped.

Reverberations

On Bruce Street, Julia Grandle, then 21, was at a counter of a business that rented freezer lockers. She was talking to a man behind the counter about getting a locker key so she could store vegetables.

"All of a sudden there was this big boom," said Grandle, who lives in Harrisonburg.

"It was close enough I could hear it real loud and feel the shock. You just sort of shake and you don’t know what it is," Grandle said.

She and the locker store employee ran outside. All they saw was dust coming down the street.

"Lots of people began running down Main Street when they saw the explosion," she said.

Rescue Attempt

Rescuers from the fire department arrived shortly after the blast.

They found a pile of rubble and small fires.

Good pitched in to help.

"Some people were trapped and it took a while to get them," Good recalled.

The heaviest damage to the building was the area of Pauline’s Beauty Shop.

Most of those killed by the blast were in the beauty shop, which also operated a school.

Rhodes Jewelry Co. and a vacant room formerly occupied by a Sears, Roebuck and Co. order office were also damaged in the Master’s Building.

Only the Advance Store, which sold auto parts, on the extreme southern end of the building was not heavily damaged, the Daily News-Record reported.

Chaotic Scene

At 10 years old, City Mayor Rodney Eagle was among the growing crowd.

He had pedaled his bicycle from Collicello Street, where he lived.

Eagle, 70, said the scene was chaotic. "It was like a war zone, really," he said.

"Everybody was trying to do what they could to salvage what they could and get people out of there. It was quite an effort."

Crowded Hospital

In a short time, the injured were transported to Rockingham Memorial Hospital.

Doctors from the professional building in the next block north on South Main Street responded.

Those injured from the blast crowded the hospital’s halls. The hospital dining hall became a temporary ward, the Daily News-Record reported.

Taylor had just started work at the hospital as a secretary handling medical records. (She marked her 60th anniversary with RMH this week.)

Taylor stayed primarily in her office but she could still gauge the activity.

"I don’t think anybody could believe how everyone pitched in and went to work right away," she said.

Overwhelming Response

Reaction outside of Harrisonburg was also swift.

Rescuers poured into the town of about 10,800, and phone lines jammed the town switchboard. During a nine-hour period between 2 p.m. and 11 p.m., 18,456 local calls were answered, according to Daily News-Record files.

"The whole town was upset and rightfully so," Eagle said. "It was just a terrible, tragic thing. It happened in the blink of an eye."

Flash Point

The explosion was triggered by an employee of a company delivering coal to the building. A member of the crew making the delivery to the basement struck a match to light a cigarette. The flame apparently ignited a concentration of propane gas that had leaked into the basement from a faulty pipe.

Everybody’s Talking

The story of the blast stayed on the front page of the Daily News-Record for more than a week.

City Council ordered an investigation of the gas pipe network in Harrisonburg.

"Everybody knew the people who worked in the shops," Eagle said. "There wasn’t hardly anybody in town who wasn’t affected."

Changing City

Six decades later, the blast remains a topic of conversation, although it comes up only occasionally now, according to some longtime city residents.

The event is fading from memory. The generation that felt its shock and ran down the street to pull people out of the rubble is passing.

"It’s difficult to find people of old Harrisonburg," Grandle said.

The city has grown by more than 30,000 people in the past 60 years. And emergency services has expanded to include an all-volunteer rescue squad.

A bank has replaced the Master’s Building. The furniture showroom at the Hardesty House (now called the Hardesty-Higgins House) is now the city’s tourism center. And, the house that shielded it from the blast is gone. Good’s home is also gone.

Daily Reminders

For Taylor, who works at the hospital now as a volunteer, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the daily reports of bombings in Iraq remind her of the devastation that swept over part of South Main Street 60 years ago.

"You don’t know what is coming next," she said. "You are grateful for every day that you have."

Contact Jeff Mellott at 574-6290 or jmellott@dnronline.com