
Townspeople heard a rumble and roar. They saw trees bend back and rubble arcing across the sky. For miles around, people thought lightning had struck.Townspeople heard a rumble and roar. They saw trees bend back and rubble arcing across the sky. For miles around, people thought lightning had struck. Then they saw a smoke cloud rising. They hurried toward the sight, from farms, oil fields, and stores, curiously at first, then in terror as word spread that the school had exploded. Inside the demolished building, students and teachers came to, half-blinded by dust. Some were able to stagger into the open. Hundreds of others lay in the rubble pile. As men and women arrived at the scene, they scrambled to pick at debris until their hands bled. Bystanders raced the injured to medical facilities in surrounding towns. Many went to Tyler, 25 miles away. Incredibly, a state-of-the-art hospital there sat with pristine equipment, abundant supplies, and zero patients. Mother Frances Hospital would be forced into action one day ahead of its planned gala opening. At the blast site, the rescue effort grew and organized. Lines formed to pass peach baskets in and out to remove debris. The dead were laid together with scraps of paper or cloth over their faces. The number of them grew disturbingly as the stadium lights came on, and work continued through the night. Rain fell on the grisly scene. Reporters raced toward East Texas, including 20-year-old Cronkite, a cub reporter for United Press International who was in Dallas at the time. The Associated Press sent Felix McKnight, who penned a poignant opening line: “Today, a generation died.” In the chaos of the aftermath, far-flung observers overestimated the death rate. The museum displays a number of front pages from newspapers that chronicled the tragedy in screaming headlines. The Boston Herald reported 670 killed, the Chicago Daily Tribune, 600. The final official count was lower but shocking enough at 294, including 16 teachers and students in each of the school’s fifth through 11th grades.


John Davidson’s sister, Ardyth, was killed in the blast. Photo: Sean Fitzgerald
Soon after the New London disaster, the state approved new safety regulations for natural gas use in public and commercial buildings.John Davidson serves as a docent at the museum, where an exhibit is dedicated to his sister, Ardyth Davidson. Ardyth played on the school’s champion softball team before being killed in the blast. John was not yet born at the time of the tragedy. Like many other victim families, the Davidsons donated some of Ardyth’s personal items, including a fragment of the coat she wore to school on the fateful day. Fourteen-year-old Ardyth, an eighth-grader, had been the Davidsons’ only child. In their grief they decided to try for another. “If [the explosion] hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have been born,” John says. The ramifications of the explosion extended well beyond New London. Fifth-grade survivor Carolyn Jones spoke in front of the Texas Legislature, asking that the danger of another, similar tragedy “be forever blotted out of existence.” Soon thereafter, the state approved stringent new safety regulations for natural gas use in public and commercial buildings. Other states and nations followed suit. In the museum, a strange-looking cylindrical device reflects another change in state laws brought about by the explosion. Among all of the deeply human and emotional displays, it seems out of place. Yet Tyner looks down at it as if it is critical to the story. It is an odorizer, designed to add the pungent smell of rotten eggs to natural gas, as required by the new regulations. “This is our legacy,” Tyner says. “These children died, now a lot of other people don’t have to.”