Remembering the Days of Farming with Dynamite

By Sam Moore. Photos Farm Collector Archives.
Published on March 7, 2019
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Courtesy of Sam Moore
The method of fusing a stick of dynamite.

The method of fusing a stick of dynamite.

When I was a kid on the farm, Dad always had a few sticks of dynamite, some caps and a roll of fuse in the shed. I don’t recall that he used it very often, but occasionally there was a big stump or rock that needed to be removed.

It was exciting for us to watch, although we were kept well away from the proceedings. Although dynamite is still manufactured in this country, anyone buying, selling, transporting or using the stuff today, mostly construction and demolition contractors, must have a license from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Back in the early 1900s, several companies, including E.I. du Pont de Nemours, Hercules Powder and Atlas Powder, manufactured dynamite and published booklets that touted the many uses of dynamite on the farm. DuPont even titled theirs Farming with Dynamite. In these were described the many ways dynamite could improve the farming operation. As a Hercules ad pointed out, “Much of the work done with a spade or an axe, a pick or a bar, can be done more quickly, cheaply and thoroughly with dynamite.”

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