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The deadliest school massacre in US history received very little attention because it wasn't committed with a gun
[PowderedWigSociety] When we think of the horrible school massacres that are now an unfortunate part of American history, we recall University of Texas, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and now Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida.As horrific as all of those monstrous slaughters of our innocent youngsters were, the deadliest school mass murder in US history is hardly known, the Bath School massacre in Michigan in 1927, during which not a single bullet was fired. Bath was a rural village of 300 people despite its location ten miles from Lansing, the state capital. The local institute of learning was Bath Consolidated School, built only five years earlier to replace the scattered one-room schools of the surrounding farmland. It had 314 students from around the region, many the sons and daughters of farmers. Some students were bused in, and all took classes with their peers over the course of elementary and high school, according to Smithsonian. May 18 was the last day of classes for students that year, but at 8:45 the north wing of the three-story structure exploded with such force that the boom was heard miles away. "We knew it came from Bath, but we didn’t know what it was or anything, so we jumped in the old car and drove as fast as we could to see what it was," Irene Dunham told the Lansing State Journal. The centenarian is the oldest living survivor. She was 19 at the time, a senior about to finish her last year‐and stayed home that morning due to a sore throat. "There was a pile of children about five or six under the roof and some of them had arms sticking out, some had legs, and some just their heads sticking out. They were unrecognizable because they were covered with dust, plaster and blood," wrote local author Monty J. Ellsworth in his 1927 account, The Bath School Disaster. "It is a miracle that many parents didn’t lose their minds before the task of getting their children out of the ruins was completed. It was between five and six o’clock that evening before the last child was taken out." As community members rushed to help after the explosion, getting rope to lift up the collapsed roof and pull the students and teachers from the rubble, a member of the school board named Andrew Kehoe drove up to the site. Kehoe stepped out of his truck filled with dynamite and shrapnel, aimed his rifle at it, and fired. The ensuing explosion killed the school superintendent, several other bystanders, and Kehoe himself. Continues. Posted by: Anomalous Sources 2018-02-28 |
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