Kingsland explosion

About

The Kingsland explosion was an incident that took place during World War I at a munitions factory in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, U.S., on January 11, 1917. An arbitration commission in 1931 determined that, "In the Kingsland Case the Commission finds upon the evidence that the fire was not caused by any German agent." However, decades later, Germany paid damages to American claimants.

The Canadian Car and Foundry Company, based in Montreal, had signed large contracts with Russia and Britain for delivery of ammunition. An enormous factory was constructed in the New Jersey Meadowlands, which was then referred to as Kingsland. The company executives decided not to take any chances with security for their plant. They constructed a 6-foot-high (1.8 m) fence around the plant and hired security guards to conduct 24-hour patrols around the perimeter and screen each worker as they entered the plant. It was located on the site of Lyndhurst's present industrial park. A brick stack, believed to be the remaining part of the Foundry, is located in the area bounded by Valley Brook Avenue, Polito Avenue, and the office buildings on Wall Street West.