Whiting’s 4th of July Disaster

John Hmurovic
May 2021

It was the 4th of July. In Whiting in 1921, that meant a parade at 9 A.M., a day full of activities at the lakefront park, and a huge firework show at nightfall to wrap up the festivities. It was going to be a day of nothing but fun. But about 45 minutes before the parade was to begin, a flash of light lit up the city, followed quickly by a thunderous boom that jolted awake anyone still in bed, and then by a cloud of smoke that rose from the Standard Oil Refinery. In an instant, the day of fun became the most deadly and gruesome day in the refinery’s history.

Eight men lost their lives. Twenty-four were injured badly enough to miss work, and twenty more suffered minor injuries. There have been other explosions that killed workers at the refinery, others that have been more destructive to property, and others that burned more spectacularly and posed a greater danger to the city. But there has never been, before or since, one as deadly as the explosion on July 4, 1921.

The overnight shift had wrapped up its day, and the 400 who were on the day shift were just starting their workdays. Among them were Frank Stout and Elmer Murdock, firemen on the 8th battery of pressure stills. There were twelve stills in each battery. The job of firemen, like Stout and Murdock, was to shovel coal into the fires burning in the brick furnaces at the base of each still. Firemen would typically shovel ten tons of coal before the end of their workdays. They also had to keep the temperature of their fires in the right range, around 700 degrees Fahrenheit.

The pressure stills were the pride of the refinery. They were created in Whiting by Standard Oil chemists William Burton and Robert Humphreys. Automobiles were still new to most Americans in 1913, when the first of the new stills were installed in the Whiting Refinery. By that time, automakers had discovered how to make cars that were inexpensive enough for many Americans to buy. The sudden popularity of cars, however, caught the oil industry unprepared. They were not producing enough gas to fill the demand. The Burton and Humphreys pressure stills solved that problem and revolutionized the oil industry. The stills gave Standard the ability to get more gas out of every gallon of oil. The pressure stills at the Whiting Refinery made more gasoline than had ever been made, and thanks to the popularity of the automobile, gasoline was making Standard Oil a lot of money.  

From the viewpoint of the workers at the Whiting Refinery, the best thing about the Burton and Humphreys pressure stills was that in eight years of existence, they never cost a single worker his life. But everyone knew that working on the stills could be dangerous. George Wildrick knew it. He was a helper, a position that was considered a step up from the fireman’s job that Frank Stout and Elmer Murdock worked. George told his family and friends that if he was ever killed on the job, it would be difficult to identify his body because the explosion would be so violent.

The top of the stills at Whiting were made of steel and filled with oil. The lower part, enclosed in brick, housed a fire. Any flame near oil is extremely dangerous, but if the stills were to produce more gasoline another danger had to be added to the mix. Burton and Humphreys concluded that they had to raise the pressure in the still to a point where it dangerously approached the limits of safety. Pressure was the key, which is why they were called pressure stills.

“You got to keep in mind that there’s a couple hundred barrels of oil shut up inside those stills, and that oil’s bound to raise a lot of hell when you’re smacking it underneath with seven hundred good old Fahrenheits, or even better. That’s not just brewing tea,” said a character in the Edward J. Nichols novel, Danger! Keep Out. Nichols worked in the Whiting Refinery before pursuing a career as a writer. His 1943 novel is set in 1921, in a town that looks a lot like Whiting, at a refinery that sounds a lot like Standard Oil’s, and where a pressure still explodes. Its characters are fictional, but the story is strongly based on Nichols’ many years of work at the refinery and his knowledge of the 1921 explosion.

There were just 700 pressure stills in the United States in 1921, and 120 of them were at the Whiting Refinery. They were thirty feet long from front to back and eight-feet wide. They stood side-by-side in sets of twelve, which formed what was called a battery.

It was somewhere between 8:15 and 8:30 A.M. on the 4th of July, when still number 95, located in the 8th battery, exploded. Some witnesses say there were two blasts. The first one sent the steel cylinder on top of the still on a flight that took it one hundred feet, where it crashed into another still.

Dozens of men were close to the explosion, because many had congregated nearby at a place where they could get drinking water. Pieces of metal from the still flew toward them like spears. But the biggest problem was that oil and gas sprayed out over a radius of 200 yards, covering some of the men and saturating the ground. At the same time, flames shot out and caught the oil and gas-soaked surfaces on fire. When the thick coat of oil on the ground ignited, it was like a blanket of flames. “Men caught in this deluge,” the Lake County Times said, “had no chance to escape.” Four stills, located in two different batteries, caught on fire. Almost all the injuries and deaths that resulted were from burns.  

Newspapers of that era regularly gave readers all the gruesome details of murders, accidents, and domestic violence. Not this time. As the Whiting Call newspaper reported, “The full tale of horrors that followed the great blast is too vivid to print.”  

Everyone in Whiting heard the blast, and many immediately began to worry. The refinery was fenced off and outsiders could not get in. So, a crowd, mostly made up of women, gathered at the fence by the main gate. The scene must have been heartbreaking, as mothers, wives, and sisters wept, fearing that their loved ones were killed or injured. With their faces pressed up against the fence, they screamed out to every man within earshot inside the refinery, begging for any word about their husbands, sons, or brothers.

Meanwhile, every available ambulance hurried into the refinery to haul men off to the hospital, or in some cases the local funeral homes, or morgues. Some of the women, unable to find out if their loved ones were safe, ran to the morgues hoping that they could, at least, find out if the man they were looking for was among the dead.

The company gave out information as it became available, but the gruesome nature of the explosion made identification of the remains extremely difficult. Some bodies were burned beyond recognition, and identifications had to be based on such things as the clothing, watches, or jewelry that still clung to their charred bodies.

Most of those inside the refinery did what they could to help the injured and dying. Dr. Humphreys was among those working to rescue the survivors. Firefighters had to combat the flames while trying to protect themselves from the frequent blasts caused by more oil and gas catching on fire. By noon, the fire was under control, but they still were unable to identify some of those who were killed.

Two of those who were not immediately identified were among the three who were killed instantly by the blast. It took more than a day to identify 32-year-old John Dzurovcak. He and his wife Elizabeth were born in Slovakia. They lived at what is today 1440 John Street with their five children. John was a fireman, shoveling coal into the furnaces at the base of the stills. That was the same job held by Thomas Reed, who also died instantly. Born in Manchester, England, 34-year-old Reed, who was not married, lived just down the street from Dzurovcak, in a neighborhood heavily populated by immigrants who worked in the refinery. Reed lived at what is today 1541 John Street.

The third man who died instantly was Fred Harbrecht, 39 years old at the time of his death. His father brought Fred and the rest of his family from their native Germany in 1882, and became early settlers of Hammond, where the father ran a dairy. Fred left behind his wife Caroline and four children. Their youngest, less than a year old at his father’s death, later went on to work at Amoco’s Naperville facility for 42 years.

Two other men did not die instantly but did pass away before they could be taken to the hospital. Gustav Hokasson was born in Sweden. At the age of 43, he was the oldest of those killed by the blast. Also known as Gus Johnson, Hokasson was single, and lived in a hotel on Chicago’s East Side. Like Dzurovcak and Reed, he worked as a fireman on the pressure stills.

The other worker who died a short time after the explosion was George Wildrick, the man who told family and friends that if he was ever killed on the job, it would be difficult to identify his body because the explosion would be so violent. He was a native of Brook, Indiana, where his young son lived with his ex-wife. George had been a telephone line repairman in Brook, but came to Whiting during World War One. He made frequent trips to Brook to see his family. On the 4th of July, his mother was out of town, visiting one of her daughters. It wasn’t until she got home the next day that the company gave her the sad news. She was still recovering from a bad auto accident a year earlier, and her son’s death was doubly hard on her. Standard Oil offered to cremate and bury George’s remains, but the family did not want cremation and wanted him buried in Brook. The company immediately placed his remains on the train back to his family’s home.

Three others were transported to Passavant Hospital in Chicago, but none made it through the day. Fred Engle, a 35-year-old father of two was a helper on the 8th battery pressure stills that exploded. He was a native of Germany. He was buried in Hammond’s Oak Hill Cemetery, near Thomas Reed, and Gustav Hokasson.

Like George Wildrick, Frank Stout was born and raised just south of Lake County. He grew up on a farm in Pulaski County, near Winamac. Although he stayed at a boarding house operated by Harley and Addie Forester at 1512 Fischrupp Avenue in Whiting, it appears his wife and three children, including a four-week- old daughter, were still in Pulaski County. His brother, Robert, was also burned by the blast. Their parents and sister came to Whiting the day after the explosion to take Frank’s remains back to the Winamac area for burial. He was 31 years old.

The eighth person to die because of the explosion was the one with the strongest Whiting connection. Joseph Paylo lived on Schrage Avenue, where his father operated a saloon. Joseph served in the field artillery during World War One and was a member of the Moose and Eagles lodges in Whiting. Both he and his younger brother, Michael, worked at the refinery. Joseph worked as a pipefitter but at the time of the explosion he was the assistant chief of the refinery’s fire department.

On the morning of the blast, Joseph was making his rounds when the explosion occurred. He rushed to the scene of the fire and immediately tried to put out the flames and help survivors to safety. He was so focused on the job, according to a Whiting Call newspaper report, that he lost all thought of himself. Before long, he had burns on his body more serious than he first thought. He soon realized he needed to get them taken care of before he could continue. He walked to the place where they were dressing burns, only to notice that he was having trouble breathing. He was rushed to Passavant Hospital, where the doctors discovered that he had taken in so much superheated and gaseous air that it burned his lungs. He died that night.        

On July 7, the Standard Oil Band led a funeral procession down Whiting’s streets in honor of Paylo. They were followed by veterans from the First World War, marching in uniform and with their rifles. Several young girls and fellow workers from the refinery followed, carrying floral pieces. And finally, there was a procession of forty to fifty vehicles. He was buried at St. John’s Cemetery in Hammond. 

Even into the next day, the search continued for more bodies in the ruins. But in the end, the count stood at eight dead.

Twenty-four men were injured badly enough to either require hospitalization, or to miss some work. They included Elmer Murdock, a fireman on the 8th battery, and Robert Stout, brother of victim Frank Stout. The others were Oscar Barnekoff, L. Bicknell, Fred Blair, Mike Collins, Charles Daily, George Eberly, John Furchak, Frank Furjan, John Furtag, Joseph Gidus, Andy Hrehovesik, Amon Johnson, Andy Lenntvorszky, Andy Loptka, Mike Poznanski, John Sanji, William Slivka, Valentine Spych, Charles Thrailkill Farrie Wyse, John Zahari, and John Young. Young probably suffered the most serious injuries. His burns required numerous skin grafts and a long hospitalization at Passavant Hospital.

The twenty workers who received minor injuries were: Sam Bensic, Herman Bierman, Richard Grigson, John Hein, A. Hoertz, John Hroskovich, Edward Hyland, Joe Karin, Fred Kiesel, John Kosior, Andy Magarany, Willis Miles, Alex Rimmel, Emerson Moore, William O’Hara, Charles Siggins, John Stibula, Paul Streko, Harry Wade, and Louis Waskovich.   

The financial cost of the fire was two million in 1921 dollars, which would be about thirty million in 2021 dollars. Two million was the estimated cost to replace the stills that were damaged by the accident. 

What caused the pressure still to explode? “It must have been a leak that caused the fire,” said the Safety Director Walter Bertow. “That would explode the still, consume the gasoline being distilled therein, and ignite the gasoline in the other stills.”

“The worst danger was cracked still bottoms,” wrote Edward Nichols in his novel about working on the pressure stills. “It was a matter of hoping gas vapor didn’t leak down through the crack and mix with air before they got the stack damper opened up and turned steam on the fire.”

In the first hours after the explosion, the hunt for a cause focused on a crack. But other than the immediate response of Safety Director Bartow, the company was silent. It was waiting for Dr. E.E. Evans of Gary, the Lake County Coroner, to conduct an inquest. It was held on July 8, at the refinery.

A key witness was the foreman of the still that exploded. He said the still was six years old, and that it had been inspected just ten to twelve hours before the accident. The man who conducted the inspection was injured in the blast but was able to testify. He said he found no defect in the still. Some questions were asked about the amount of pressure applied in the still. But the inspector said there was an automatic governor that prevents the pressure from going over 95 pounds, and he testified that the governor registered between 93 and 95 pounds when the still exploded.

Because of the intensity of the blast and the fire which followed, Coroner Evans had little physical evidence to examine. Based mostly on testimony, he concluded that there may have been a defect in the still, but without any proof of that he declared the accident to be “one of those things that happen now and then due to no one’s fault,” as the Gary Evening Post described it.

“To the grief-stricken families of the dead, the Standard Oil Company (Ind.) expresses its deepest and most heartfelt sympathy,” the company said in its official statement, “finding its only consolation in the fact that the tragedy was not due to faulty construction, or to any human negligence, being describable only as an act of God.” It was one of those rare cases, the company went on to say, “where God seems to intervene in His mysterious way.” That closed the book on the investigation into why eight men died and forty-four were injured.

Forty-five minutes after the explosion, while the fire was still burning, while bodies were still being removed from the scene, while some of the city’s women still clung to the fence around the refinery anxiously waiting for word about their loved ones, Whiting’s 4th of July parade kicked off on time. The festivities were held at Whiting’s lakefront park, and the evening was capped off with fireworks