GRAND JUNCTION - 1943

Photo: Daily Sentinel

On June 27, 1943, railroad cars carrying World War Two munitions caught fire and exploded at Grand Junction, Colorado, and showered part of the western end of the city with shells, shrapnel and debris for several hours.

The Daily Sentinel, the local newspaper, called it "a blitzkrieg of battlefront proportions" as conditions were too dangerous for firefighters to get close enough to play hose lines on the flaming rail cars.

Several people were injured, including Charles Downing, the city's fire chief. Downing was standing at the corner of a warehouse when an exploding shell shattered his arm. He walked about two blocks for help.

Surgeons amputated his arm at the hospital and administered two pints of blood, according to the Associated Press.

The International News Service said authorities "sought clues linking a possible saboteur ring." German POWs housed in Colorado laid railroad ties in the mountains, according to website cozine.com. 

However, officials of the Denver Rio Grand & Western Railroad suggested an overheated axle or brakes were the mostly likely source of the fire.

Earlier in the year, on Jan. 8, 1943, fire destroyed a hangar and eight aircraft at Walker Field, the municipal airport in Grand Junction, the Steamboat Pilot reported.

The blaze, which spread from the rear of the hangar, was probably caused by "the boiling over of oil placed near a furnace to warm," and in its aftermath all that was left was "corrugated iron from parts of the building, twisted metal parts of the plane (cq) and other rubbish," the newspaper said.

Only one aircraft parked 100 feet from the hangar survived.