BENTON, Tennessee — Benton is a quaint city of barely 1,500 residents. In 1983, it was the site of a massive explosion that rocked this town to its core.
The detonation happened the morning of May 27 at an illegal fireworks business concealed behind Webb’s Bait Farm.
The blast killed eleven people. Investigators found body parts more than 300 feet away.
“I haven't seen anything like this since I was in Vietnam in ‘66. I would say that this would roughly equate with the effect of a 500-pound bomb,” said an investigator on the scene.
The force of the blast was powerful enough to shatter windows on nearby homes and was felt upwards of 18 miles away.
During the investigation, authorities discovered the explosion happened in an area where people were making flashpowder for the fireworks.
“The flash powder that you're dealing with here detonates at about 19,000 feet per second. If the people that were working here knew what they were dealing with, they’d be too nervous to work,” said another investigator.
The owner of the bait shop and the fireworks operation was 30-year-old Dan Lee Webb.
He was delivering his fireworks out of town when the explosion happened, but in the days after, he turned himself into the authorities.
Webb was charged with 11 counts of manslaughter. Most of the people killed were his relatives. He posted a $150,000 bond and went to trial.
Webb’s trial was held in April 1984. He entered a guilty plea and cooperated with authorities on other cases, leading to a sentence of 10 years.
“It really doesn’t seem too fair to me, because quite a few of my friends got killed over there. I think he should serve more time than what he is,” a Benton resident said.
Today, the site of the explosion is home to Big Frog Mountain Outfitters and the land shows no signs of the explosion that rocked Benton 40 years ago.