(Photo provided from the West Virginia Regional History Center) Marietta Torpedo Company Nitroglycerine Wagon at Shinnston, WV.

That was The Marietta Register headline reporting the explosion of the Marietta Torpedo Company nitroglycerine plant on September 6, 1900. The factory was destroyed. “Trees were entirely denuded of leaves, the nearby orchard was stripped naked of fruit…The shock of the explosion was felt in (Marietta)…Many people ascribed it to a terrific earthquake or even the end of the world.” Fortunately, no one died. A team of horses was killed, but the driver, who had gone for a drink of water, luckily escaped. There had been a similar explosion only 13 months earlier — described below.

Torpedos were a major part of early oil drilling. These were not the kind used to sink ships, but similar in concept. You’ve heard of “fracking,” the process of fracturing the rock formations around a drill hole to release the oil and gas. Drillers used explosives for this up until the mid-20th century. The idea was simple: after drilling, an explosive device (the torpedo) similar to a small artillery shell, was lowered into the hole and detonated. The process was called “shooting the well.”

As thousands of wells were drilled in the late 1800s, there was an explosive (so to speak) demand for torpedoes. Marietta Torpedo Company made and sold torpedoes. Oil drilling was a boom – and occasionally bust – industry in Washington County, Ohio, from the 1860’s.

The company began in 1897 and quickly expanded with numerous branch offices in Ohio and West Virginia. Its first nitroglycerine manufacturing plant was near Moore’s Junction. But only two years later on June 13, 1899, a massive explosion obliterated the plant and killed two men. Windows rattled for miles around. It was a gruesome sight. Tree limbs were strewn with the remains of the men and horses. The company rebuilt the plant 3 miles east of Marietta near Duck Creek.

People handling the nitroglycerine used in the torpedoes were fearless. A. J. Bankson, who started the Marietta Torpedo Company, had been handling the delicate explosive material for 30 years without accident. Milliken and French with another company, each had been working with nitro for over 20 years. The Century Review of Marietta Ohio publication described their expertise: these men worked in this “extra-hazardous occupation…with the graceful ease of a snake charmer.” Many others in the industry were not so fortunate. Dozens died in explosions from handling the nitroglycerine.

(Photo provided from the Local History and Genealogical Library) Advertisement from 1922.

Marietta Torpedo Company continued to thrive. By 1922, an advertisement listed 28 branch locations in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. Its economic impact was significant – for the oil and gas industry and for employment of hundreds of people in three states. The Company’s fortunes faded as hydraulic fracturing – using water pumped in under enormous pressure – became prevalent in the 1940’s. The company was sold in 1956 to Producers Torpedo Company. A Marietta Daily Times editorial announcing the sale lamented: “The great oil boom that this city experienced…has long since passed.”

There was another indirect benefit from the Marietta Torpedo Company: it brought the L. D. Bosley family to Marietta. Leslie Delmer Bosley with his wife Laurie moved to Marietta from Mannington WV in 1909 to manage the company. L. D. Bosley was with company for many years, eventually serving as President and Treasurer. Their two children, Bertlyn and Stewart Bosley, were raised here. They both had distinguished careers elsewhere and moved back to Marietta in the 1970’s.

Bertlyn and Stewart Bosley bought a rundown historical landmark at auction in 1974. Stewart spent nearly 20 years restoring it. The property?

We know it as The Castle at 418 Fourth Street, the iconic gothic home and museum which attracts thousands of visitors each year.