Our Times

The terrific blast completely obliterated the double housing unit at 502-504 Bowman Terrace on Jefferson Street, claiming the lives of all occupants. The victims were 23-year-old Mrs. Wanda Cooper, wife of Granville Cooper, and the couple’s two young children, Charles Wayne, 5, and Barbara Joe, 3. In the second unit, the dead were Mrs. Rose Ellen Overfelt, also 23, the wife of William Hulen Overfelt, and their 2-year-old daughter, Vickie June.

Those who came upon the scene witnessed shocking devastation. Items were strewn over an entire block. A mattress landed in a tree a half block away, and a refrigerator came to rest on a car. Clothing hung from telephone lines, in what was said to resemble wash on a line. There was a three-foot-deep hole where the explosion originated. Flames shot from a broken gas main.

Other Bowman Terrace units suffered extensive damage. The William Brittain home, across from the destroyed house, had a wall blown in, but fortunately no one was home at the time of the blast.

Not only did local police, the fire department, physicians, members of the Red Cross, and others descend on the site to provide aid, but soldiers from Fort Knox who were in the city helping fight the flood, came to help, removing debris, directing traffic and holding back the crowd that had assembled. Two men who quickly arrived on the scene to assist were Sergeant Paul Keene, a Vincennes man stationed at Fort Knox, and Captain James Compton, of the Army Medical Department. The men had been just a few blocks away photographing the flood when they heard the explosion and saw debris flying through the air.

Mr. Overfelt had just left the house for his job at the Pomeroy Manufacturing Company and heard the blast. Mr. Cooper was a truck driver for the Bringwald Transfer Co. and was located near Terre Haute and transported back to Vincennes by State Police. Ironically, the Cooper family was in the process of packing for a move to a house on Church Street the following day. An investigation was immediately called for by Vincennes Fire Chief Dewey Shepherd, State Fire Marshal Alex Hougland, and others. The cause of the tragic explosion was determined to be, as reported in the “Sun-Commercial,” “from an accumulation of gas under the concrete floor of the house” that was ignited by some unknown cause. The grates under the house were closed, so there was no ventilation. It was noted that if the floors had been wooden, the damage wouldn’t have been as severe.

The remains of Mrs. Cooper and her children were removed to Brockman Funeral Home, where a triple funeral was held on Saturday. Mrs. Overfelt and her daughter were taken to Stocker Funeral Home and then to her mother’s house on North Eleventh Street, where a double funeral took place, also on Saturday. All caskets were sealed and remained closed. All five victims were interred in Fairview Cemetery.

The Vincennes Eagles Lodge quickly began raising funds for the two men who had lost everything. Both of the young widowers would remarry and remain in Vincennes.

Granville Cooper died in 1971 and William Overfelt in 1984.

Even 73 years later, the deadly explosion still ranks as one of the worst disasters to ever occur in Vincennes.