The whirr of tires is the dominant noise along Newburgh’s Water Street today. Once, conversation was the most constant sound when sidewalks were full of citizens walking in and out of shops and offices. While stopped at the one traffic light now, it is fun to open one’s car windows and imaging the bustle of the place decades ago. Try it. Just be cautious of using your time machine. You could land in August 1928. On a hot Friday that year Newburgh’s busy business district was rocked by an explosion. It came at the worst time possible for public safety: noon. Businesses were open and active, shoppers were hustling through the streets, office workers were emerging to get some lunch.

At the corner of Third and Water Streets (which no longer exists), a sudden boom sent the front of William R. Dumond’s clothing store out into Water Street. That explosion was followed by others as manhole covers blew off their collars sending steel disks flying dangerously around frightened pedestrians. These manhole covers blew off as far away as Farrington and Liberty Street indicating to police and fire officials that gasoline in the sewer system was probably responsible. Columns of fire shot up from the open sewer lines, one nearly burning a policeman who was walking close by.

Around the corner from Water Street where the explosions started first in the Dumond haberdashery, then Gorrie jewelers, then Sterns and Schoonmaker’s department stores, J. Townsend Cassedy was thrown from his desk and across the room of his law office up on Third Street. The same injury happened to Lena McClonkey, a clerk at Stern’s Store, as her desk chair was likewise tossed back from the percussion.

Bobby Tierney was a boy playing outside his home at 57 Montgomery Street. As his mother saw a fountain of water erupt from the manhole at Montgomery and Third followed by a ball of fire, she raced outside calling to him. They heard a crash and saw the window of Queen’s Grocery on Smith Street at Third blow out with Hal Queen hurled to the street. Mr. Queen hung on to the awning ropes to slow himself. A customer, John Williams, was just entering Queen’s and was thrown into the fruit bins, bruising his hip. All around downtown, people picked themselves up and scurried wondering where the next eruption might take place. Inside the wrecked stores was a strong odor of gasoline, keeping firemen busy assessing danger spots while they hosed the fires that had started. The repercussions were felt as far away as South Street and Liberty.

The Newburgh News reported the explosion this way: “Thud upon thud in rapid succession shook the section from the humdrum of the daily routine. Gusts of flame blew through the air catching at merchandise and dry interior woodwork. Where one moment there had been normalcy, the next, instant danger lurked with fear grasping at the hundreds in the affected area.”

The preliminary estimates of damages the next day were over $75,000 in losses. That seems small by today’s dollars, but was considerable in the 1920’s. Dumond’s men’s shop suffered the most, being gutted by the fires that followed the explosion.

Gorrie’s Jewelry Store on the corner also suffered heavy damage to its building and goods. Johnson and Hare Ladies Clothing Store as well as Stern’s and Schoonmaker’s needed serious repair and merchandise replacement. Most of the crockery at Schoonmaker’s fell from its shelves and smashed. Damages over $1,000 were estimated for many of the Third Street businesses too including Queen’s Grocery, Robinson’s Tailor Shop and Daniel Copan’s Law office.

Several theories were advanced for the cause of the August 24, 1928 explosions in Newburgh. Less believable were claims that bootleggers’ whisky mash had clogged and fermented in the sewer system or that illuminating gas (Newburgh still had a few places using gaslight) had seeped into the sewers. More likely, it was the accumulation of gasoline, since that was the smell that many had complained about for months before the incident. Gasoline smells were detected in several cellars in downtown Newburgh and the Fire and Health Departments collaborated in a campaign to clean up and educate citizens about the dangers of pouring excess flammable liquids of any sort into the manholes and gutters of Newburgh.