FARMINGTON – When a Freeman Township man showed up at Franklin County Sheriff Dennis Pike’s home Thursday with 50 old dynamite blasting caps and asked him where he should take them, the sheriff told him he had taken them far enough.

Pike called Maine State Police bomb squad member Sgt. Joseph Poirier, came to town to help dispose of them.

They located a safe site to explode them, which was the Maine Department of Transportation lot off Route 4 in the Fairbanks section of Farmington, Pike said.

The caps, which were copper-jacketed, were most likely from the 1940s era. They were found in the Freeman resident’s barn and had belonged to his father. Police put the caps in a cardboard box lined with a ballistic vest and placed it in the trunk of a vehicle to be driven to the lot, Pike said.

The men set up an area to safely detonate the caps.

Pike said he yelled “fire in the hole” before they were exploded.

So if people in the area heard a large noise in the area about 11:30 a.m. Thursday, that’s what it was, Pike said.

The sheriff said that if people find dynamite caps they should call the sheriff’s office at 778-2680 or himself at home 778-4504 and they would make every effort to pick them up and dispose of them.

Pike said he has had a couple of experiences of having dynamite caps brought to his attention.

“But this time, I had a chance to blow them up myself,” Pike said.