PAGE 4 - INTER-COUNTY LEADER - NEWS SECTION - A - JULY 16, 2008
Blast Island/from page 1 over the years by those who witnessed the event July 8, 1931, during the construction of Hwy. 8 into Minnesota. The blasting of basalt rock and sandstone in Taylors Falls on that Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m., created what is called Blast Island in the St. Croix River. It was not intentional to create this island, but that was the result. Some say too much dynamite caused it. Kelly says in the summer of 1931 dynamite was used to blast the basalt rock to make way through the bluffs for a road through the valley known as Hwy. 8. Crews even put cables on the Devil’s Chair, a natural landmark of Taylors Falls, to keep it from falling into the river during the blasting. Unfortunately, on April 12, 2005, the top of the Devil’s Chair met its fate at the bottom of the river after an act of vandalism left only the base of the chair along the scenic bluff line. Kelly said the blasting crew for the new highway worked their way out to the curve and began blasting sandstone, which is a softer rock than the basalt they were blasting earlier, but the dynamite amount was not adjusted accordingly. That was just one of the contributing factors into what followed that blasting. The Minnesota highway commissioner at the time was Charles M. Babcock, who passed away in 1936. He was said at the time to have been a strong advocate for getting the highway constructed despite any public concerns about blasting through the scenic river bluffs for a highway. Those who wanted to preserve the bluff lands and were opposed to running a highway through the river bluffs did not look upon Babcok’s plan favorably. Babcock’s ambition however, to build this highway no matter what, paved the way for travel from St. Croix Falls to Taylors Falls and into the Metro area that is heavily used today. The road crew carved holes into the sandstone and set off charges in it that were spaced apart and were to be ignited one at a time in a sequence, with pauses between each blast. However, the crew misjudged the density of the sandstone and placed the charges too close together, causing a chain reaction blasting that caused all the rock palings to fall into the river. The river was narrower in those days and the palings ended up all the way over in the Wisconsin side of the river, extending the Minnesota shoreline and damming the river up. Captain Bob Muller, who was a young boy at the time, said the blast blew out one of the windows in the school. Shockwaves from the blasts and the rock palings falling into the water also caused a three-to-four-foot wave of river water that pushed its way to the upper dalles, or near the existing canoe rental location. An island was created from the palings known as Blast Island to the local residents. A story in the Dalles Visitor from 1980 written by James Taylor Dunn, historian, included information about a meeting at the Taylors Falls Town Hall on Oct. 8, 1931, requested by the St. Croix River Association. At the meeting were the Army Corps of Engineers, contractors, and many people who were discussing how best to clean up the debris from the “overshot” that occurred on July 8. The decision to come out of that meeting was to clear out a new channel on the Minnesota side of the river and leave the rest as an island; a decision not many local people favored, but the construction company did. Dredging was completed by cable cars to open up the river again, removing the palings that dammed up the river. The river has widened due to erosion over the years, and the original
Captain Mike Kelly.
Blast Island, seen in this aerial photo, is located just south of Interstate Park Minnesota. - special photo island that was created by the blast was perhaps added to by the dredging of the river. Once the water was navigable, the Corps was pulled out of the cleanup process. Kelly said that in talking with people over the years, a common dispute over the volume of dynamite used that fateful day exists. “Some believe 20 tons of dynamite were used, and others say 200 tons were used,” he said. “No one really knows for sure.” Kelly says the boat company goes with their belief of 20 tons when they announce and point out Blast Island on the boat tours. It was noted that the dynamite used for the blast consisted of two boxcar loads, but that doesn’t help in the dispute of the tons of dynamite used because the boxcars of the 1930s were a different size than today’s boxcars. The Standard Press, dated July 16, 1931, lead with the headline, St. Croix River Dammed by Big Shot in Highway Work. The article indicated the blast came from dynamite containing 22,000 pounds of explosives placed in the sandstone one mile below the village of Taylors Falls and halfway up the 150foot cliff. The Standard Press article also read, “The shot was intended to move about 35,000 cubic yards of material and if one may judge by the appearance of the river, it succeeded exceptionally well.” Kelly said one man who worked on the blasting crew was placing blasting caps on charges of dynamite that would be lowered into the carved holes for the Hwy. 8 project the day before the blast that created Blast Island took place. On that Tuesday, July 7, this man had blown off his ring finger while putting on blasting caps. The man himself told this story to
Kelly when he took a boat tour years later. He was all too happy to show Kelly and the crew his hand with the missing finger. He told Kelly that the day of the blasting that created Blast Island, he was in a hospital bed at the Baker House in St. Croix Falls, recovering. The Baker House was located where the existing St. Croix Regional Medical Center is, and was St. Croix Falls first hospital. This man said he felt his hospital bed lift off the ground and knew exactly what had caused it to do that - too much dynamite laid too close together. Legend Blame it on the secretary. Kelly also describes the familiar story about Blast Island that seems to get a smile each time it is told. “The contractor could not accept the blame for this expensive and excessive blasting error. “The legend goes that the contractor went back to his office where his attractive young secretary worked. He riffled through some paperwork and noticed the decimal on the purchase order for the dynamite was misplaced, indicating too much dynamite was ordered,” Kelly said. “The legend further states the young secretary is buried at the base of Blast Island. We here at the boat company do not believe that at all. We make sure when we announce it on our boat tours that people know it is a legend. It was probably started by Bob Muller.” Whether you believe in legends or not, one thing remains certain: there is an island in the St. Croix River called Blast Island, created by a dynamite blast in the Taylors Falls bluff area to make way for Hwy. 8. No one may ever know how much dynamite was ordered or used, or what happened to the secretary,
Captain Bob Muller was just a young boy when the blast happened and recalls a window being blown out of the elementary school.
The blasting for Hwy. 8 through the bluff line of Taylors Falls in 1931 included strapping down the Devil’s Chair to keep it from falling in the river. This recent photo shows the base of the chair, which is all that remains after vandalism occurred in 2005. –Photos by Tammi Milberg but it is a great story about the area and a piece of history that has been carried through the generations. –Additional contributing information from Jack Liljenberg.
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