“I saw three women blown right out the front of the building . . . two of the women were mangled all to hell.” That was how one witness described the scene when the Supreme Cleaners main processing plant exploded on March 29, 1963.
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Star photo
Star reporter, Tom Foust, was two blocks away when the explosion leveled the plant. He was quickly on the scene taking photographs.
Today, the intersection of N. Stone Ave. and Grant Road is a fairly quiet, typical Tucson crossroad. But, on that March morning it was a place of chaos. One of the cleaners owners, Harris Salonic, turned off a light switch when he was leaving the basement of the plant. That was all that was needed to ignite leaking gas fumes.
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Star files
A car on Grant Rd. was hit by this falling cement block.
The resulting explosion blew the entire north wall of the building into Grant Road. Three parked cars were crushed from falling debris. A 200-pound block of concrete was hurled through the corrugated roof of a nearby cycle shop on N. Stone Ave.
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The Supreme Cleaners following the explosion.
Windows in two nearby gas stations were blown out. “The whole building seemed to lift into the air and then settle back,” said one of the station owners. Damage was also reported at the nearby Grantstone Shopping Center.
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A crowd quickly gathered at the Supreme Cleaners location.
Every piece of available emergency equipment was quickly on the scene, including
manpower and equipment from Davis-Monthan AFB. More than 2,500 people crowded the area to get a better view of the disaster. The smoke was visible throughout the city.
Six people died that day. Three bodies were found immediately, but the search for others lasted for hours in a drizzling rain. Thirty-two people were injured in the blast.
Salonic was trapped in the basement for more than an hour. When he was freed, he was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital, where he died of severe burns three days later.
A Superior Court judge ruled in 1967 that Tucson Gas & Electric was responsible for the explosion and liable for the damages. Judge Robert O. Roylston said that the leakage had existed for a substantial period of time and that TG&E would have discovered it if they had exercised due care.
Supreme Cleaners rebuilt their facility at that corner within about six months. Over the years, the building has been the home of an opera company and a paint company.
