If you ask most Texans what happened on March 18, 1937, a majority will greet you with a blank stare.
For the citizens of New London in the Piney Woods of East Texas, however, the answer is automatic. The tragedy that occurred mid-afternoon that day would affect the community for years and still stands as one of the deadliest disasters in the history of the state. But the lessons learned from it yielded benefits that still resonate across the globe.
Situated in one of the richest school districts in the nation at the time — in the rich East Texas oil patch — London School was approaching the end of its scheduled instruction that Thursday. Shortly after 3 p.m., a loud boom could be heard from miles across the oil-well- dotted land. The school building, relatively new, had exploded.
Oil workers and other citizens from New London and the surrounding communities arrived at the school to render aid. The building housed 5th through 11th graders, in addition to post-graduates. The afternoon of the explosion, the PTA was also meeting at the school.
“Bodies were laid out around the perimeter,” Marvin Dees, at the time a 20-year-old Pinkston Oil crew member, was quoted as saying. “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”
Dees and a number of volunteers grabbed peach baskets from one of the trucks that had stopped to assist, filling the baskets with debris as they searched for possible survivors. They were later referred to as part of the Peach Basket Brigade.
Left Rescue workers search through the wreckage. Right One victim’s gravestone.
Approximately 300 souls lost their lives due to the explosion. No one can say with accuracy how many lives were saved. News spread quickly, as families flocked to nearby hos- pitals and morgues. The story was covered by a 20-year-old Texas journalist on his first national assignment: Walter Cronkite.
The ensuing investigation revealed that stress leaks had developed in the pipe couplings below the floor, and the school was filled with odorless gas. A science teacher turned on an electric sander, causing a spark that led to the explosion.
In the aftermath of New London’s horrible accident, legislation was passed, first by the state government and later by the Federal Government, requiring a chemical be mixed into natural gas to give it a detectable odor.
Dees, the last remaining rescue worker, passed away in January of this year at age 102. Following his retirement in 1979, he made every effort to visit the New London Museum and Café on a weekly basis to offer visitors a first- person account of the tragedy.
Visitors from around the world may pay their respects and learn more about the tragedy at a museum located across the street from the present-day West Rusk High School. A 32-foot-high granite cenotaph was erected on the site in 1939, and in March 1987, on the 50th anniversary of the explosion, the London Ex-Students Association placed a marble monument on the north side of the Cenotaph.
