FONTANET, IND. – Fontanet was practically destroyed today by the explosion of the Dupond Powder Co. plant. The dead number from 25 to 50. More than 600 persons were injured, and every building in the town was wholly or partially levelled to the ground. Where stood a thriving and busy town of 1,000 people this morning, tonight there is ruin and scattered wreckage.

When it blew up, the concussion was felt nearly 200 miles away. Farm houses, two miles away, and schoolhouses equally distant, were torn to pieces and their occupants injured. A passenger train of the Big Four Railroad four miles away had every coach window broken, and several passengers were injured by flying glass.

50 years ago, 1957

• PORTLAND – A federal grand jury today returned anti-trust indictments against both factions in last summer’s Maine lobster price war. Two bills charged conspiracy to fix prices that resulted, the government claimed, in noncompetitive prices and a short supply of the Down East delicacy. It was the first time in Maine that criminal action has been taken under the anti-trust laws.

• Unless the Twin City area gets about 8 inches of rain between now and Dec. 31, this year will be one of the driest on record in the last 83 years.

25 years ago, 1982

FARMINGTON – Excitement was mounting Thursday at Franklin Memorial Hospital as the administration, staff and personnel prepared for the ground-breaking ceremony to take place Friday at 10 a.m. This event will take place rain or shine to officially and traditionally announce the $4.2 million expansion and renovation project.

WASHINGTON – Drug makers will respond quickly to the deaths caused by cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Tylenol and begin selling “high risk compounds” in tamper-resistant packages early next year, the government said Friday. Dr. Arthur Hull Hayes Jr., commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said he expected his agency to issue a new regulation requiring tamper-resistant packaging by the first week in November.