Bath School disaster

On the morning of May 18, 1927, Andrew Philip Kehoe, treasurer of the Bath Township school board in Michigan, carried out a series of bombings that killed 38 people in the initial explosion at Bath Consolidated School, most of them children. Kehoe had spent much of the prior year secretly purchasing and hiding dynamite and pyrotol explosives around the school building and his own farmstead, exploiting his access as a school board member and his experience as an electrician.

Earlier that morning, Kehoe murdered his wife, Nellie Price Kehoe, whose body was later found in a wheelbarrow on the farm property. He then detonated explosives that destroyed his farmstead, killing his two horses, which had been hobbled to prevent escape. As rescuers responded to the farm fire, an alarm-clock-triggered device detonated in the school's north wing basement at approximately 8:45 a.m., collapsing part of the building and killing 38 people. As rescue efforts got underway, Kehoe drove a truck loaded with explosives and metal shrapnel to the school, summoned superintendent Emory Huyck to the vehicle, and detonated it, killing himself, Huyck, retired farmer Nelson McFarren, and 8-year-old student Cleo Clayton, who had survived the first blast. Postmaster Glenn O. Smith was mortally wounded by the truck blast and died before reaching a hospital. Searchers later discovered an additional 500 pounds of unexploded dynamite in the school's south wing, set with a timer matching the first device, indicating Kehoe had intended to destroy the entire school and everyone inside.

A coroner's inquest, which took testimony from more than 50 witnesses beginning May 23, 1927, found that Kehoe alone, without conspirators, was responsible for the deaths, and exonerated the school board and its employees of negligence. The inquest determined Kehoe had murdered Huyck and that his wife's death and the farm and school bombings were part of a single plan. A later death in August 1927 of fourth-grader Beatrice Gibbs, following surgery for injuries sustained in the blast, brought the total death toll to 45, making it the deadliest attack on an American school to date. A further death, that of Richard Fritz roughly a year later, has been attributed by some to injuries sustained in the disaster, though he is not included on many official victim lists.

Contemporary accounts attributed Kehoe's actions to anger over increased school taxes, his defeat in a 1926 township clerk election, and the pending foreclosure of his farm mortgage. The disaster prompted a national outpouring of aid, including funds from the American Red Cross, the state of Michigan, and a personal donation from U.S. Senator James J. Couzens that helped fund a replacement school building, dedicated in 1928. The site is now the James Couzens Memorial Park, and a memorial plaque listing the names of those killed was installed near the park entrance in 2002.