Grover Shoe Factory Disaster - Failure Theories

Failure Theories

An assistant engineer who had been with Rockwell five minutes before the explosion stated that when he left, the boiler gauges showed steam pressure to be in the safe range and the boiler to have plenty of water. The state Inspector of Boilers checked the boiler's fusible plug and determined that the explosion was not caused by a lack of water.

Rockwell's wife stated that for the past few days her husband had been irritable because he had to operate the boiler at "a pressure it was unequal to". A factory official stated that he was "at a loss" to account for the explosion, and when told of Mrs. Rockwell's remarks said that the amount of pressure on the boiler was not a matter in which factory officials interfered, adding that the engineer "took his orders in this matter from the Hartford Boiler Insurance Company, and if he overworked that boiler he did it without our knowledge. We do not even know why he used the old boiler this week instead of the newer one".

(The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company provided regular inspection and testing to customers of its insurance program, as well as on-site engineering services, resulting in something of a shared responsibility with boiler owners for safe operation.)

One Grover executive speculated that the explosion might have been caused by a recently installed safety device. C. E. Roberts, a manager of Hartford Steam Boiler, stated "So far as I have been able to learn there appears to have been no carelessness in the handling of the boiler, and the explosion, in my opinion, was caused by a defect that was impossible to discover."