One shot shook the town

That's what happened in Welsh during the last week of June 1921.

It appears that four boys, none of them named in news reports, were hunting in the woods next to a drainage ditch that was being cleaned, but weren't finding much to shoot at. That's when they "cast about for a suitable target on which to demonstrate their marksmanship," according to a report in the Rice Belt Journal.

Tin cans and such are the things most often found for target practice like that, but that's not what these boys found. What their "casting about" turned up was a box of dynamite left behind by a ditch cleaning crew that had been blasting stumps blocking the drainage channel.

The boys removed a stick and put it on the top of the box. Each of the boys "was allotted three shots at the timid looking cylinder," according to the report.

The first boy missed three straight; so did the second and third.     

The last boy missed his first shot, but his second one hit the dynamite stick, exploding it -- and about 40 pounds more of the high explosive that was still in the box.

"The explosion shook the whole town, breaking windows and dishes in nearby residences," the newspaper reported.  "It tore up trees, roots, stumps and grass for quite a distance, but miraculously no one was hurt."  The force of the explosion, according to the report, "seems to have taken the opposite direction from where the boys were, otherwise the account might have been harder to narrate."

At first the kids didn't want to admit that they had anything to do with the town-shaking event, but it's kind of hard to act nonchalantly after causing an explosion that "echoed for many miles around," that damaged homes and buildings, and that probably scared the bewhilikers out of the shooters themselves when it went off.

"It took some little time and a good amount of persuasion to get the full and correct account from the boys," the Journal reported, "but they finally 'came clean' … clearing up the whole mystery."

When the four boys appeared in his court, Mayor J.W. Armstrong fined them $2.50 each for discharging a firearm within the town limits and gave them each a 48-hour suspended jail sentence, "entitling them to admission to the 'calaboose' on the next offense against the majesty of the law."

The report noted that the fourth shooter still had "one more shot coming to him," but suggested that it would probably be a long time before he thought about doing something like that again.

"The boys have probably learned a lesson about explosives that will stay with them throughout life," the report concluded, "and it is to be hoped that parents will be impressed with the folly of children possessing firearms, even of small caliber."

Nothing was said about the crew that left behind a box of dynamite for kids to find.

 

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You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.