Rick Just
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UXB Boise (tap to read)

12/15/2022

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The purpose of a fuse in the placement of dynamite is to give the person lighting the charge time to get away. Typically, that time is measured in seconds, not years.
 
While building a road along the bank of the New York Canal in 1900, the crew doing the dirt work found a fuse. Digging a little more carefully, they found the fuse was attached to a charge of dynamite. Rather than move what might be an unstable explosive, they chose to light the fuse and light out of there. The dynamite went off, just as whoever had set the charge ten years earlier had intended.
 
Speculation was that the lost explosive had been put in place while another crew was digging the New York Canal in 1890. Maybe they stopped for lunch, or they went home at the end of the day forgetting about that particular charge, which was planted near the Foote House just below where Lucky Peak Dam is today. Whoever placed the dynamite and inserted the fuse probably never thought it would have a ten-year delay.

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    Author, Speaker

    Rick Just has been writing about Idaho history since 1989 when he wrote and recorded scripts for the Idaho Centennial Commission’s daily radio program, Idaho Snapshots. His latest book on Idaho history is Images of America, Idaho State Parks. Rick also writes a regular column for the Idaho Press.

    Rick does public presentations on Idaho's state park history and the history of the Morrisite war for the Idaho Humanities Council's Speakers Bureau.
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