Revisiting the Blast
A local video producer revisits the famous Roseburg Blast
of 1959 in dramatic fashion through a free app and accompanying walking tour.
Story by Jennifer Grafiada Photo by Thomas Boyd
The Blast of 1959 left indelible marks on the city of Roseburg and its history. When a fire ignited a parked truck full of explosives it leveled eight city blocks, killed 14 people and created a 52-foot-wide crater in the heart of the city.
Kent Rochester wasn’t alive to experience The Blast, but the Sutherlin native remembers reading the News Review’s annual retelling of the event beginning when he was around 10. Little did he know the captivating articles and photos would inspire his unique creative output decades later.
Blast Area from above
In 2005, Rochester bought a video iPod and began thinking of how it could be used as a platform for tourism-related virtual tours. Then working for 99 Productions, Rochester and a collaborator from 99, Pat Hart, started work on a video tour related to The Blast, piecing together the story from the accounts of witnesses and reenacting scenes with the help of volunteer actors.
They began creating a series of short video vignettes, spliced together from archival footage and still photos and accompanied by scripted narration.
The Douglas County Museum, Douglas County Library and local police and fire departments helped Rochester with materials, personnel and vehicles, and he spent countless hours tracking down people who had ties to The Blast and researching the timelines to ensure meticulous accuracy.
“The app tour features 12 designated stops, where key moments from more than 50 years ago are brought to life in the same locations where the events took place.”
“We wanted to get it right,” says Rochester, who now owns Big Wrench Media, a Roseburg video production company. “We spent a lot of time tracking down leads and making phone calls. We also wanted to honor those who lost their lives in the Blast, so we made an effort to get photos of everyone who had died.”
Fiat in Blast Area
With the introduction of the iPhone, Rochester realized he could reach a far larger audience than he had envisioned by offering the tour as a free app. Anyone living in or visiting Roseburg can download the app, head downtown, then take a walking tour that features 12 designated stops, where key moments from more than 50 years ago are brought to life in the same locations where the events took place.
Initially used by the Roseburg Visitors Center, the tour app was offline until recently when Rochester, with support from UV magazine, made it available again at www.1959RoseburgBlastTour.com.
Rochester hopes that his app helps people better understand one of the most significant events in Roseburg’s history and appreciate its lingering effects.
“The Blast reshaped downtown Roseburg,” says Rochester. “A great deal of urban renewal in the downtown area occurred in its aftermath. It seems unthinkable today that a truck loaded with explosives could have ever been left unattended in the center of a city, but it was the Blast that created major changes in the law regarding explosives and their transportation. Hopefully, we learn from our mistakes so we don’t repeat tragic events like this.”
The 1959 Roseburg Blast, By the Numbers
1:14 am: Time of detonation on Aug. 17, 1959
2,000: Feet into the air that the smoke reached
2: Tons of dynamite that were ignited in the truck, along with over 4 tons of ammonium nitrate
7: Miles away that windows were broken
14: People killed
125: People injured
8: City blocks destroyed
30: City blocks severely damaged
$12 million: Estimated damage done
$1.2 million: Amount in civil damages paid by Pacific Powder Co.
52 ft: Diameter of the crater the blast created
12 ft: Depth of the crater
300: Buildings damaged
Another Walk to Remember
In the 1980s, a fourth-grade teacher named Britton Weaver imbued his beloved hometown with the magic of the past by taking his students on walking tours.
Weaver, who taught at Hucrest Elementary for more than 20 years before retiring, was an avid fan of Oregon history, which at the time was a required subject in the public school curriculum.
With the help of a few fellow teachers, he mapped out several points of interest, mainly along Jackson, Oak, Cass, Lane, Washington and Douglas streets. Sometimes, he would have the children do gravestone rubbings at local cemeteries before embarking on the tour.
For decades, his typewritten Historic Walking Tour has sat at the Floed-Lane House, which is maintained by the Douglas County Historical Society. The tour is now being updated with the help of Mary Weaver, Britton’s widow, and is available at RoseburgTours.com.
