This strange looking photograph on the left, shows all that is left of the Indiana Sanitary Pottery Company. The plant was completely destroyed by a mysterious blast that occured exactly at 2:00 pm on Tuesday, August 14, 1928. This scene shows the remains of one of the company's six coal fired kilns.

The rumors were flying along with the debris, following the spectacular explosion at the Indiana Sanitary Pottery factory located on Johnson Street, in an industrial area just north of the downtown business district. First reports from the scene were that 20 employees were in the building. Authorities then quickly learned that the plant had been closed since Saturday, and was scheduled to shut down all week. The company produced water closet bowls

After it was learned that plant was closed because of a lull in demand for the company's products. Police thought that the plant watchman was in the building when the explosion occured, that was to be untrue. Miraculously no one was killed or severely injured in the explosion. However numerous people were hurt in the neighboring buildings occupied by The Simplex Railway Appliance Company, The Betz Company and the Queen Ann Candy Company.

Thousands of curious onlookers were drawn to the area to see what had gone array. A gigantic mushroom cloud raising several thousand feet into the air, drew hundreds of shoppers from the downtown shopping district as well. Firefighters were quick to arrive at the scene, but there was little left to save. The blast was felt all across town, including the neighboring cities and towns of Whiting, East Chicago and Munster. The explosion was reminiscent of the State Theater bombing that rocked the city on November 8, 1927.

In a bizarre incident, shortly after the explosion, employees of the United Chemical and Organic Products Company, located on Burnham Avenue in Calumet City, about a mile and a half east of the blast. Workers there were puzzled when hundreds of sheets of paper began raining down from the sky, and landing on the roof tops and ground. If was later discovered upon closer inspection that the papers were time cards and ledgers sheets from the office of the Indiana Sanitary Pottery Company in Hammond. The papers had been blown skyward and carried off by the upper winds.

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Source information and photo from the microfilms of The Times newspapers located at the Hammond Public Library.

Twentieth Century Time Capsule © 1999 HammondIndiana.com

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