Hercules Powder Plant Kenvil, NJ

The Hercules Powder plant at Kenvil New Jersey exploded on September 12 1940 killing 55 people. This event was happened at a ammunition production plant. There are other instances of Hercules powder plants exploding, such as the one in Radford, Virginia on May 7 1981 that seriously injured 4 workers and damaged a $5million building. Another flash fire & explosion happened on March 28 1988 that resulted in the death of another worker.

THE HISTORY OF HERCULES (from Hercules Chamber of Commerce)
The name Hercules comes from a potent and explosive black powder made by the California Powder Works. The company named their product after Hercules, the Greek mythological hero known for his strength, in order to signify how powerful the black powder was. What began as a California Powder Works plant site on the shores of San Pablo Bay grew into the company town of Hercules, which thrived through one hundred years, three transferals of ownership, and five wars.

The company Hercules Powder has been known under several names in different areas. The link on the right leads you to the newspaper accountings of the event from the day. The picture above is the actual newspaper from the day after.

There are several sites of information on the internet about these explosion but none have detailed histories of the explosions or of the victims and the responses.