Benson's "Dynamite Row," the Apache Powder Historic Residential District

One of the Apache Powder bungalows on W. 6th Street. Note the Register of Historic Places placard to the left of the front door.

 Benson, the important railway town between Tucson and Tombstone, is too often a "drive through" town for tourists heading to Tombstone or Bisbee. They probably note the gorgeous murals that punctuate the weary buildings, and the replica of the original railroad depot on the north side of the main drag, but most pass through completely unaware of some of the historic treasures just a couple of streets south. On W. 6th Street, eight houses and a little town park are lovely little footnotes in a history involving things that go boom, a company's generals, and the predominant architectural style of the area in the 1920s. 

After serving in Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders unit in the Spanish-American War, and then serving again in DC in World War II, one of the area pioneers and the newly-minted state's most successful businessmen co-founded a company called the Apache Powder Company. Producing dynamite and nitroglycerin at its plant just seven miles down the road from Benson in what was then called Curtiss, the company was referred to simply as "the explosives factory" to the many locals employed there. Incorporated in the state in 1920, the company finished construction of its Curtiss plant in 1922 and was soon producing a million pounds of powder monthly. A narrow-gauge railroad ran from Benson to the plant, and the employees and officials of the plant ran back and forth as well. In 1925, to provide housing for the higher-ups in the company and managerial staff of the plant, the company invested in a number of lots on W. 6th Street in Benson and began constructing houses. Technically, the lots were first purchased by the officials themselves, but after a dispute over the transactions, the company bought out the lots and houses and rented them back to the officials at a subsidized rate. The April 12, 1925 Tucson Citizen announced that a home for the plant's general manager, D. E. Fogg, was erected on the street.  

  

One of the outliers of Powder Row: this Spanish Eclectic house is an Apache Powder Company house, but not in the Craftsman Bungalow style.

The houses were all stucco, and nearly all were of the predominant architectural style of the region during the 1920s - a style called "Craftsman Bungalow." Compact, trim houses, the Craftsman Bungalow were a toned-down reaction to the frothy fondant excess of the Victorian buildings that previously dotted the west. The houses on 6th Street were generally narrow-fronted but surprisingly deep, and each had a detached garage that opened to a back alley. 

Not only did Donald E. Fogg have a newly-built Apache Powder home to occupy with his wife, Hilda, their two children, and an elderly aunt named Maria M. Baker, but quite naturally so did the president himself, Charles E. Mills, whom I mentioned above as the co-founder and successful businessman. A Harvard-educated mining engineer, Mills worked at a number of the territory's-then-state's major mines, including the Copper Queen in Bisbee and Big Bug in Yavapai County. Mills, who remained Apache Powder's president until his death in 1929, lived in his Powder Row home alone, as he never married. Not only a successful mining engineer, he was also an organizer and president of Valley Bank and other enterprises. 

The 1930 census for Bisbee shows dozens of residents in the 6th Street area employed by "explosives factory." Mechanics, engineers, administrators, laborers - Apache Powder populated the neighborhood. Too, there were physicians - also employed by the plant, because in addition to the residences the company built, there was a hospital. Referred to as an "evacuation hospital" it was intended to serve the employees injured at the plant (and injuries there were!) and their families. 

The Mission Revival style house at 209 W. 6th Street, which was the company's "evacuation hospital." 

The region's newspapers carried frequent updates regarding the progress of the street's Apache Powder houses. On June 28, 1925, the Benson happenings column in the Tucson Daily Star announced that a Mr. Wenzel of Douglas was in Benson on matters related to the building of the houses. On August 16, the Tucson Citizen notified the public the houses' construction was "progressing rapidly," and on November 16th the Daily Star commended the tidy exteriors and trim lawns each of seven new $12,000 bungalows on "Dynamite Row" displayed. By January, 1926, eight of the homes had been completed, to the benefit of Valley Lumber in Globe - who reaped a $70,000 contract in the matter, which also included an office building at the plant. Within a month, in February, 1926, the Arizona Republic announced construction on the new hospital was about to begin and in March, a dispensary was added. 

The hospital construction was timely, as April brought a major explosion at the plant. Three thousand pounds of nitroglycerin exploded, totaling the nitrator building (but only damaging the nitrator itself) and its contents, breaking windows in buildings over half a mile away, and making a big-ass boom heard for miles. Surprisingly, no one was injured; the papers raved about the modern features of the plant that made it safe in such instances. When an employee knew the mixture of the nitro was going badly, he ran from the nitrator building, activating a warning whistle that ensured some other workers nearby could run to safety. Despite the damaged acid lines, steam lines, brine lines, and water lines, General Manager Fogg announced the necessary repairs would be made within just five to seven days.

The plant's physicians, such as Dr. Robert C. Kirkwood (who lived on 6th Street) and his trained nurse wife, Laura, remained busy with other injuries, though. Charles Sharp injured his foot badly while operating a foot adz at the plant; plant mechanic William Lewis suffered a severe head wound from a flying chisel, and was sent to the hospital in Tucson. Roy Miller was badly burned on the face by nitric acid, and although the papers reported it as being "bitten" rather than the correct "stung" by a scorpion, the infant son of employee Felix Miller nonetheless was critically ill after the envenomation. 

In addition to the hospital and homes the plant built in Benson, the company bought a 1.75 acre lot on the north-east corner of W. 6th and S. Central to serve as a community park. In the 1960s, that spartan park was transferred to the city and is still called "Apache Park." 

Eight Apache Powder houses remain in Benson today, and in 1994 the houses and neighborhood were given historic designations by the National Register of Historic Places. Look for the placards on the home fronts. The neighborhood itself is the Apache Powder Historic Residential District, and the Dynamite Row houses are all on the south side of the street, across from the little park and the Benson Town Hall.

If you take the time to visit Dynamite Row on your next drive to, or through, Benson, look for these addresses, which span both sides of S. Central:

143 W. 6th Street    Craftsman Bungalow

157 W. 6th Street    Craftsman Bungalow

173 W. 6th Street    Craftsman Bungalow

189 W. 6th Street    Craftsman Bungalow

193 W. 6th Street    Craftsman Bungalow

209 W. 6th Street    (the hospital, Mission Revival style architecture)

243 W. 6th Street    (Spanish Eclectic Style architecture)

255 W. 6th Street    Craftsman Bungalow

To the rear of the houses, many of the original detached carports still stand (in various states of disrepair). Most of the houses look to be structurally in good condition, though the "trim lawns" the papers once boasted about are in short supply. The Craftsman Bungalows all rest on California redwood piers, under which there are crawlspaces, and feature wood floors and tapered front porch support columns of wood. And as you visit, take a minute to reflect on the optimism and pride the new occupants once had in these historic gems, working proudly at a new, important plant that produced explosives to support the state's mining industry while their children played at the Apache Powder park across the road. This, in 1920s Arizona, was the American Dream. 

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