Check out this invoice from 1910: it’s for powder kegs and dynamite! It was sold to Benton Hardware, and cost $37.25. Wonder who blew up what…?
The invoice is from Murphy-Maclay hardware in downtown Great Falls, which was featured in this Retro entry.
I love stuff like that, neats old books pictures and document…fun
Fifteen kegs of Black Powder and fifty pounds of dynamite going up at once would have been a incredibly big explosion. It would be more likely that the materials were used a little at a time.
Given that the invoice lists a Fort Benton hardware store, it is possible that the order was made to provide them retail stock.
The explosives would have been re-purchase by Fort Benton area farmers to break up big rocks and big tree stumps. The invoice date is around the time frame when the virgin prairie was first converted over to agriculture. There were plenty of big rocks that needed moving, still are.
That’s one guess, at least.