The reporter, Gregory Harutunian, was having problems finding more information on the 1956 fireworks incident. He went to the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, Illinois, and talked with Diana Dretske and Chris Pyle of the History and Collections Archives, two of the foremost authorities on Lake County history.
After some search, they found an article about the event. Said Dretske, "Oral histories (which the reporter had been getting) are great, but historians need to dig deeper and finding the article helped to bring the facts together...it wasn't a total mystery to folks in the area." A reporter is trained to get the facts. Asking people what they remember, especially something almost 60 years ago, is not always the best thing as people tend to forget and embellish.
Next, the Article. --Cooter
2 comments:
I was at the 1956 fireworks disaster. Our family had crossed the tracks completely and were in the main lot. The first few aerial bombs went off, but early on in the show I saw a train bound for downtown Fox Lake from the line that extends into Wisconsin near Lake Geneva. One rocket went off particularly low over the train, which was moving, but which soon stopped on the bridge when the Fox River flows under the railroad trestle and US 12. I thought to myself what a view passengers on the open-window cars must have had. It was a couple of minutes after the train stopped and no more fireworks were launched that a murmur started through the crowd hat someone had been hit by the train. As ambulance (most were from funeral homes in that day) started to arrive, we started to look for my sister, who had been with some people that had fortunately scurried off the tracks in time. Lots of people with picnic blankets and coolers had been on the track. We got my sister and went toward our summer home, less than a mile away a few doors south of where Nippersink Creek is crossed by the Milwaukee Road. We would up where US 12 meets County Line Road and took a box of railroad fusses we had to direct traffic away from the route past the site of the disaster, up County Line road to Grass Lake Road toward Antioch. Others were directing traffic somewhere east of Fox Lake to other roads, and cars were rejoining US 12 via the reverse route we were sending them on. As was our usual routine, breakfast was sweet rolls the next morning from one two bakeries in town, and on the was past the American legion, a Fox Lake dump truck was parked along the tracks and workers were cleaning up the body parts that could not be collected in the dark the night before. The next year, if I'm not mistaken, was blustery weather, although we weren't there that night. Folks were kept off the tracks but a spark blew under the tarp protecting the fireworks from inclement weather and a woman was seriously injured when the whole supply went off on the grounds.
I'm glad your sister survived. I am a member of that Legion's Sons of the American Legion and go there often.
That accident was just something that you don't expect to happen.
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