Blasting Items/Trojan 25 No. 7

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Trojan 25 No. 7.jpg - TROJAN 25X7 - Dark yellow Trojan blasting caps 25 No. 7 manufactured by Trojan Powder Co., Allentown, PA & San Francisco, Cal, 2 1/16 x 1 1/8x 1 1/2 in., brown and white letters, crimped bottom, ca. 1920-1945 (Trojan powder is not a dynamite containing nitroglycerine but a dry powder with a basis of nitrostarch mixed with various oxygen carriers and combustible materials. While discovered in the 1830s by French chemists, it was the last to be used successfully in blasting explosives. The problem was how to produce a stable nitrostarch and that was discovered by F. B. Holmes and J. B. Bronstein of Dupont’s Eastern Laboratories. Holmes obtained several patents during the 1905 to 1908 timeframe fro stabilizing nitrostarch powders. Meanwhile, Bronstein left Dupont and formed the Non-Freezing Powder Company in 1905 so named because the powder contained no liquid and therefore could not freeze. He built a small experimental scale plant near Paulsboro, New Jersey and produced some explosives for commercial use before a fire forced the plant to be moved elsewhere. The Allentown Non-Freezing Powder Company, later changed to the Pennsylvania Trojan Powder Company, was incorporated on September 13, 1905 and built a commercial scale plant at Seiple, Pennsylvania. On April 25, 1906 the Pacific High Explosives Company was incorporated extending the manufacture of trojan powder to California. This company built a plant at Roberts, California and in 1912, it reorganized as the California Trojan Powder Company. After World War I, the east and west coast companies all merged into the Trojan Powder Company and continued to develop factory processes to produce a satisfactory stable product. A number of permissibles of the nitrostarch type were approved by the Bureau of Mines. The company continued operations into the 1940s. See Van Gelder and Schlatter, History of the Explosives Industry in America, pp 636-39)

Trojan 25 No. 7 | TROJAN 25X7 - Dark yellow Trojan blasting caps 25 No. 7 manufactured by Trojan Powder Co., Allentown, PA & San Francisco, Cal, 2 1/16 x 1 1/8 x 1 1/2 in., brown and white letters, crimped bottom, ca. 1920-1945 (Trojan powder is not a dynamite containing nitroglycerine but a dry powder with a basis of nitrostarch mixed with various oxygen carriers and combustible materials. While discovered in the 1830s by French chemists, it was the last to be used successfully in blasting explosives. The problem was how to produce a stable nitrostarch and that was discovered by F. B. Holmes and J. B. Bronstein of Dupont’s Eastern Laboratories. Holmes obtained several patents during the 1905 to 1908 timeframe fro stabilizing nitrostarch powders. Meanwhile, Bronstein left Dupont and formed the Non-Freezing Powder Company in 1905 so named because the powder contained no liquid and therefore could not freeze. He built a small experimental scale plant near Paulsboro, New Jersey and produced some explosives for commercial use before a fire forced the plant to be moved elsewhere. The Allentown Non-Freezing Powder Company, later changed to the Pennsylvania Trojan Powder Company, was incorporated on September 13, 1905 and built a commercial scale plant at Seiple, Pennsylvania. On April 25, 1906 the Pacific High Explosives Company was incorporated extending the manufacture of trojan powder to California. This company built a plant at Roberts, California and in 1912, it reorganized as the California Trojan Powder Company. After World War I, the east and west coast companies all merged into the Trojan Powder Company and continued to develop factory processes to produce a satisfactory stable product. A number of permissibles of the nitrostarch type were approved by the Bureau of Mines. The company continued operations into the 1940s. See Van Gelder and Schlatter, History of the Explosives Industry in America, pp 636-39)

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