WASHINGTON (AP) – Thirteen rockets in honor of the 13 states graced the Fourth of July celebration in Philadelphia in 1777, beginning a wild tradition of gunfire, cannon fire and fireworks that was only gradually tamed into the displays of today.

Along the way, dynamite was loosed in city streets, major fires swept through towns and Pike’s Peak was temporarily turned into a gasoline-fueled inferno, according to an American University librarian who has chronicled it all.

While fireworks continue to pose dangers – witness the deadly explosion as workers unloaded a fireworks truck in Bonita Springs, Fla., on Wednesday – they are handled with a care and government oversight unknown in the fireworks fervor of earlier days, says librarian James R. Heintze.

“People used to work seven days a week, long hours, and the Fourth of July was the one day in addition to Christmas that people had off,” he said. “They wanted a noisy, raucous display.”

Heintze has been combing newspaper archives since 1995 for examples of the historical hullabaloo, as well as the more staid parades, musical performances and presidential addresses. He offers highlights of 227 Independence Days on the university’s web site.

“In the 19th century, Fourth of July was very dangerous,” Heintze said. “Hundreds of people were killed across the country, thousands were injured.”

In the 1800s, July 4th fires leveled sizable portions of Allegheny City, Pa.; Edwards, N.Y., and Harlem, N.Y. Perhaps the best known was the Great Portland Fire in Maine in 1866.

Blamed on a firecracker that landed in a pile of wood shavings at a boatyard, it left some 13,000 people homeless among Portland’s population of 30,000.

The mayhem sometimes was intentional.

In 1884, when local leaders refused to supply the men at a mining camp known as Swan City, Colo., with fireworks, the miffed miners dynamited the post office.

As late as July 4, 1901, the mayor of Colorado Springs, Colo., issued a warning to citizens not to set off dynamite in the streets.

By then the freewheeling tradition was beginning to fizzle, led by the American Medical Association’s crusade for “safe and sane celebrations.”

It marked the beginning of a long, bumpy road toward more professional pyrotechnics.

More recently, the American Pyrotechnics Association credits the 1976 bicentennial with sparking renewed interest in fireworks. Millennium celebrations and increased emphasis on patriotism since Sept. 11, 2001, also fired up enthusiasm.

Such modern shows are true to the spirit, if not the technique, of the grandaddy of civic fireworks displays, rigged up on Pike’s Peak in Colorado in 1901.

Train cars of lumber were hauled up the 14,000-foot peak and soaked in kerosene to produce a giant bonfire that burned down to a thick bed of coals. On July 4, barrels of gasoline were rolled down a special track into the fiery embers, sending flame and coals shooting skyward.

Newspapers reported that the spectacle was visible 75 miles away in Denver and that “from towns within 20 miles, the effect was the same as of a volcano.”

—

On the Net:

Fourth of July Celebrations Database: http://gurukul.american.edu/heintze/fourth.htm

American Pyrotechnics Association: http://www.americanpyro.com/

AP-ES-07-03-03 1749EDT