Kinston, Oct. 20—Because a colored employe of the West Construction company washed his hands in gasoline with a lighted lantern over his arm, work on the Elm Grove Road, one of the principal projects of the big Lenoir County road program, will be hindered for a time. The highway commission today gave the reason for a $5,000 fire at a road construction station 2 ½ miles south of here yesterday. The blaze that was started when gas fumes were ignited from the lantern quickly enveloped two small locomotives used in hauling materials and a section of a 200-foot tunnel of the station.
The locomotives, gasoline propelled engines, and 15 or 20 feet of the tunnel, which was partly of frame construction, were entirely destroyed. The value of the locomotives new, was greater than the loss the company is estimated to have sustained. City firemen hurried to the road station but were unable to save the blazing property. No employe was injured. The negro with the lantern made a hasty exit from the fire zone and escaped being burned.
From the front page of The Smithfield Herald, Oct. 24, 1921
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