Featured 20th Century Industrial Situation Found Photo

I think an explosion of some sort.

 

How about an explosion. Grain and flour elevators used to have dust explosions in the early days quite often. Fits with Eastern Wa. state and their wheat production. Every little town on the Railroad had its own silos to store the wheat for RR shipping.

 

I think that's entirely possible.

Debora

 

I agree.

 

Another thought: The tall structure in the center background with windows? This is not a silo. I wonder if it's not an early fractional distillation tower of a petroleum processing plant? The things that I don't see are storage tanks and piping. perhaps the tanks were located on a separate lot?

 

I don't know what it is but windows could be found on grain elevators etc.

example

http://blog.buffalostories.com/tag/labatt-grain-elevators/

 

I'm not sure this helps at all but my crummy editing program can't do much better. You can see silo type buildings next to the windowed tower. I think

 

I’m thinking not an earthquake because such an event’s damage would be more widespread. This damage appears to be “site specific”, drawing people to that locale in order to gawk.

 

Now am wondering if it was a grain elevator explosion…

 

Explosion was my first thought. Those two coned structures in the foreground may have been dragged out in the open for some reason.

 

I searched for grain elevator explosions in the 1930s. No luck. Despite including the date, Google wanted to fill the replies with events of much more recent dates.

 

I searched for b&w photos of grain elevator explosions, and while most feature some fire or fire damage, not all. In the pics not showing fire or soot, there were enough similarities in the appearance of the debris to lead me in that direction.

Have you tried a Google image search to see if it pops up?

 

I just did a search and it seems my photo has a bit of a rare perspective if this is what it is.

 

Sure looks like a grain / flour / mill explosion to me .......

 

This pic may have been taken some time after the event. Note the excavating machine in the foreground. It may have been brought in to help clean up the mess.

 

I don't see an excavating machine anywhere in the image. Can you point it out please?

 

Could this be some kind of steam shovel?