Using Dynamite on J.P. Matheson's Land, 1935

By Osmond L. Barringer as published in the Charlotte News on April 10, 1946

In the April 1 issue of the Carolina Farmer an article on ditching with dynamite by F.H. Jeter brought to mind the first shot of this kind I made for the late J.P. Matheson on his estate opposite Sugaw Creek Church in the spring of 1935.

In order to straighten the old bed of what is known as Little Sugaw Creek and also to drain a swampy piece of valuable land, he was anxious to have a new channel cut for about 600 feet that would not only carry the usual flow of the creek, but would take care of the spring floods. As I had built a lake and done other landscaping for him, he asked me to look into the cost of this new channel.

All the estimates we could get seemed high and I called his attention to the possibility of doing the work with special ditching dynamite, about which I had read a good deal. We secured 15 cases of dynamite which we thought would be sufficient to do the job. A local blacksmith made us two augers from specifications furnished, and we then laid out the new channel and started to work.

A series of holes from 3 to 4 feet apart and 18 inches apart were sunk and the next morning the sticks of ditching dynamite were inserted and carefully tamped in. Where the ground was sandy, a bucket of water was poured in each hole to increase the density. Two ordinary caps were inserted near the middle and about 10 feet of double fuse run out. After giving the moving picture people time to get set, the fuses were lighted and in a few minutes the blast went off throwing up a cloud of sand, dirt, mud and stones to a height of 60 feet or more, and the entire length of 600 feet looked like a dirty curtain, but in the pictures resembled grove of tall trees more than anything else.

Figuring the common labor and dynamite, without any charge for supervision, the yardage showed a net cost of approximately 5 ½ cents a cubic yard, which at the time was about a fifth of what it would have been with machinery, and the difference would be even greater now.

Another advantage worth calling attention to is the fact that the dirt and debris were thrown over a wide area and there was not spoil bank left to give trouble in the future.