The sprawling, secretive U.S. Army site in Commerce City was used to manufacture and store a variety of weapons. It was built during World War Two and closed 50 years later. Sections were leased to private industry after the war.
The popular nature preserve opened to the public in 2011 after an extensive cleanup.
A giant inferno at the old site threatened the wellbeing of the surrounding community on July 27, 1947, erupting in coal bunkers and spreading toward towering chlorine storage tanks and eight railroad chemical cars.
A hero locomotive engineer, James Priller, braved the heat and moved the cars and their volatile cargo - cutting the risk of all-out catastrophe."We'd have been powerless if those tanks exploded," Denver Fire Chief Allie Feldman said.
Miraculously, no one was hurt. The situation had been so bad that at one point that journalists covering the blaze were told they did so at their own risk, the Rocky Mountain News said.
On Oct. 11, 1951, a gasoline bomb fuse triggered an explosion that injured nine women. Two succumbed to their injures at Aurora's Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Aurora.
On Feb. 28, 1952, fire destroyed a three-story building on the arsenal grounds operated by the Julius Hyman Chemical Company. On July 20, 1952, a worker died in an explosion on the fourth floor of another building on the arsenal used by the Hyman company.
On Oct. 24, 1953, flames erupted at a building housing the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. The Rocky Mountain News described the blaze as spectacular "with phosphorous bombs shooting hundreds of feet into the air."
On Feb. 28, 1952, fire destroyed a three-story building on the arsenal grounds operated by the Julius Hyman Chemical Company. On July 20, 1952, a worker died in an explosion on the fourth floor of another building on the arsenal used by the Hyman company.
On Oct. 24, 1953, flames erupted at a building housing the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. The Rocky Mountain News described the blaze as spectacular "with phosphorous bombs shooting hundreds of feet into the air."
And on July 4, 1953, appropriately enough, there were more fireworks at yet another Hyman company operation on the arsenal grounds. "Flaming chemicals spurted out of pipes," the News said.
[Photo: U.S. Air Force]
[Photo: U.S. Air Force]
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