Historical marker for 1964 explosion in Marshalls Creek unveiled
Fifty-nine years after the truck explosion killed six people in Marshalls Creek, a state historical marker has been dedicated to commemorate the tragedy.
Gene Berry, the assistant chief of the Marshalls Creek Fire Company, recounted the events to the community members who had gathered Monday for the unveiling.
Firefighters were dispatched to a vehicle fire on Route 209 shortly before 4 a.m. on June 26, 1964. The driver of the tractor-trailer was gone. The responders didn’t know what was inside.
“Within three minute of that arrival and preparations, at 4:06, suddenly: Bam! An explosion,” Berry said. “If you read the accounts of those that were on the scene and survived, it was a horrific event in time. Responders being thrown through the air. Apparatus being destroyed. Metal fragments flying everywhere.”
Three firefighters and three passersby were killed. The fire company lost three pieces of apparatus, and the truck — which contained explosives and caught fire from its back tires — was blown away, leaving behind “a crater 40 feet across, 10 feet deep,” Berry said.
The deceased firefighters were F. Earl Miller, 50, of Marshalls Creek; Leonard R. Mosier, 38, of Middle Smithfield Township; and Edward F. Hines, 42, of Marshalls Creek. The passersby were John Regina, 23, of Middle Smithfield Township; Joseph Horvath, 24, of Scranton; and Lillian Paesch, 33, of Baltimore.
Ralph Miller, the Marshalls Creek fire chief, called it “the most disastrous and tragic thing that has ever happened in the history of Monroe County” in The Daily Record’s June 27 coverage of the tragedy.
Windows were blown out at the Middle Smithfield Elementary School a half-mile away. Shaking houses were reported as far away as Saylorsburg. The Pocono Reptile Farm was destroyed, setting free venomous snakes that were hunted by police and Tobyhanna Army Depot soldiers.
The event is historically significant not only due to the local deaths and destruction, but also because, as the marker says, it “helped lead to the creation of the 1974 U.S. Transportation Safety Act, setting stricter federal regulations on the transport of hazardous materials.”
Securing approval of a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission requires “a lot of work,” said Commissioner William V. Lewis Jr. “I always say it’s kind of tantamount to writing a master’s thesis on a particular topic. There’s a lot of intense research.”
Middle Smithfield Township was successful on its second application, which included more documentation. Holly Dennis, the township’s liaison to its historical commission, was thanked with flowers from the fire department for her extensive work on the application.
In addition to Berry and Lewis, attendees heard from Carrie Wetherbee, chair of the Middle Smithfield Township Historical Commission; Russ Scott, president of the Monroe County Historical Association; Monroe County Commissioner John Moyer; Middle Smithfield Township Supervisor Annette Atkinson; and staff from the offices of U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, state Sen. Rosemary Brown and state Reps. Maureen Madden and Tarah Probst.
The marker is located along Route 209 at Regina Farms, across from the site of the explosion and on land owned by Ed Regina, brother of John Regina. At the time of the explosion, the Regina Hotel operated there.
Berry led a moment of silence and gave the invocation before he unveiled the marker along with Lewis and Regina.
“I think that’s the perfect spot, because it’s directly adjacent to where it happened,” Regina said after the ceremony. There are plans to make a memorial at the site, he added.
This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: 1964 explosion that killed 6 in Poconos remembered with marker
