St. Louis firefighters pour water onto the burning Ralston Purina feed mill at Seventh and Gratiot streets, which was destroyed by a grain-dust explosion at 3:20 p.m. Jan. 10, 1962. The explosion and fire killed two Ralston workers and injured 36 others. Fighting the fire caused a fire captain's death by heart attack and injured 22 firefighters. The blaze quickly spread to much of Checkerboard Square's labyrinth of buildings, grain bins and elevators. Firefighting was complicated by near-zero temperatures, which quickly froze the water sprays, coating the buildings, surrounding streets, fire engines and firefighters themselves with thick ice. Less than four hours later, another major fire broke out in the Musical Arts Building in the city's Gaslight Square entertainment district, just west of midtown. At the height of the night's firefighting, the city Fire Department was down to seven reserve pumpers. (Robert Holt/Post-Dispatch)
ST. LOUIS • On Jan. 10, 1962, all the talk was about bitter cold. At 3 p.m., with the temperature only 4 degrees, Carson Crocker was cutting a customer's hair at 702 Chouteau Avenue. Police officer Kenneth Jones tried to stay warm in his patrol car one block away. Major Nesbit worked inside the Ralston Purina feed mill that towered over the neighborhood just south of downtown.
The quiet chill was shattered at 3:20 p.m., when a grain-dust explosion ripped through the Ralston mill, at Seventh and Gratiot streets. The blast blew open Crocker's front door, showered airborne debris around Jones' car and threw Nesbit across the room.
"I heard this 'whoom' and there was fire everywhere," Nesbit said. "I crawled until I could see and then I cut out of there."
It was the beginning of one of St. Louis' biggest fires, and one of the wildest nights ever for the St. Louis Fire Department. In temperatures that quickly froze their water sprays, firefighters fought two general-alarm fires and handled 44 other calls. For a time, the department had only seven pumpers in reserve for a city of nearly 750,000 people.
At Ralston, the blast killed two workers. Fire quickly raced through the labyrinth of Checkerboard Square, the company's signature location since 1896. Firefighters on 22 pumpers took stations around the widening blaze. A captain died of a heart attack.
Then at 6:39 p.m., a fire broke out in the Ambassador-Kingsway Hotel, West Pine Boulevard and Kingshighway. Twenty minutes later, the department began sending the first of 15 pumpers to a major fire at the Musical Arts Building in the Gaslight Square entertainment district.
Fire Chief James Mullen ordered all off-duty firefighters to work. "At 8 p.m., we were really hurting," Mullen said.
As firefighters labored overnight at Ralston and Gaslight Square, the temperature fell below zero. Next morning, with the temperature at minus 7, sunshine played brilliantly on sparkling ice formations covering the fire scenes. But John Woods, a Ralston employee, was dead. So was fire Capt. Roy Simpson. Ralston employee Sherrill Parker was missing. Thirty-six Ralston employees and 22 firefighters were injured.
For nearly a week, firefighters poured 29 million gallons of water onto the Ralston ruins. Parker's body wasn't found until two weeks after the fire.
Ralston pondered rebuilding the downtown mill, then chose to build the office tower and complex that exists today. On Jan. 1, 2002, a late-night fire gutted the top floor of the 15-story tower. It was 16 degrees that night.
A grain-dust explosion ripped through the Ralston Purina feed mill south of downtown on Jan. 10, 1962. The resulting fire was one of the biggest ever in St. Louis, with temperatures in the single digits hampering firefighting efforts. Two workers were killed in the blast and a fire captain died of a heart attack while at the fire scene. Dozens more workers and firefighters were injured. The Purina headquarters tower was built on the site. Photo by Arthur Witman of the Post-Dispatch
A grain-dust explosion ripped through the Ralston Purina feed mill south of downtown on Jan. 10, 1962. The resulting fire was one of the biggest ever in St. Louis, with temperatures in the single digits hampering firefighting efforts. Firefighters battled the blaze overnight as temperatures dropped to minus 7. Post-Dispatch file photo
A fire heavily damaged the Musical Arts Building on the evening of Jan. 10, 1962, the same night the St. Louis Fire Department fought a major blaze at the Ralston Purina mill just south of downtown. The three-story building, on the southwest corner of Gaslight Square (Olive) and Boyle Avenue, was built in 1904 and was home to several Gaslight Square establishments. It was renovated and rebuilt, but burned again in 1970 and demolished for good in 1971. Photo by Lloyd Spainhower of the Post-Dispatch
A blaze roars from the Ralston complex in 1962. Two people were killed, and the fire gutted the company's mill on Chouteau Avenue. Photo by Arthur Witman of the Post-Dispatch
The Gaslight Square fire heavily damaged, but did not destroy, the Musical Arts Building, at Boyle Avenue and Olive Street. Spray from the many firefighters covered the building and environs with thick ice. St. Louis Public Service Co. streetcars had to be rerouted because of deep ice on Olive. Note the sidewalk trees bent over by the weight of the ice. The building was demolished in the 1970s. (Floyd Bowser/Post-Dispatch)
City firefighters answered 44 other fire calls on Jan. 10, 1962, many caused by overheated furnaces and malfunctioning space heaters as St. Louisans tried to fight the frigid cold. But Ralston was not the only five-alarm fire that night. At 7 p.m., a fire began in the Musical Arts Building in the city's Gaslight Square. The building was home to the Three Fountains Restaurant and the Laughing Buddha tavern. By 8 p.m., with 22 pumpers at Ralston and 15 at the Musical Arts, the Fire Department was down to seven reserve fire trucks. Off-duty firefighters who were called in by Chief James Mullen used some of the older equipment that had been stored in reserve. Other major calls that evening included fire and smoke at the old Ambassador-Kingsway Hotel, at West Pine Bouelvard and Kingshighway; and at Oakley Products Corp., 7017 Manchester Avenue, where fire Capt. Fred Langwith was injured in the collapse of a roof. (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch)
Demolition workers give a ragged striped effect to the Ralston grain elevators at Eighth and Gratiot as wrecking was underway on Dec. 25, 1962. Company officials estimated the cost of damage by the explosion and fire at $3.5 million. (Robert LaRouche/Post-Dispatch)
Thick ice formations on Gratiot Street, just east of the Ralston mill, made the sloping street impossible to use. Water runoff from firefighting created the ice. In the background, a train climbs the approach to the MacArthur Bridge. (Floyd Bowser/Post-Dispatch)
