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Explosion at Allegheny Arsenal
- When
- 1862-09-17
- Where
- Lawrenceville
On September 17, 1862, an explosion killed 78 workers, mostly young women, at the Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville.
The blast occurred around 2 pm. The most common view is that a horse's metal shoe struck a spark, igniting loose powder near the lab. Symington speculated leaking barrels caused it, a point of agreement among witnesses. The event was overshadowed by the Battle of Antietam.
Sources
- Allegheny Arsenal Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-17
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.