From the Archives: Remembering the Benton Fireworks Explosion of 1983

This week, we marked the anniversary of one of the deadliest disasters in Tennessee Valley history.

It has been 25 years since the illegal fireworks plant explosion near Benton in Polk County.

It killed 11 people and revealed an underground industry that not many outsiders knew about.

Here is Kristen Johnson's story from this week on how people remember the disaster.

But we want to give you Bonus Video of our stories from May of 1983.

The Explosion

We begin with News 12's Team Coverage from the scene of the explosion.  It happened on a Friday morning.  This is what it looked like by Sunday evening.  The reporters are Melanie Woods and Richard Everitt.

The Arrest

The man who owned the "Bait Farm" wasn't there when it went up.  Dan Webb was in New York on business.  But he lost some people very close to him in the explosion.  Over the weekend, Webb turned himself in to police.  Melanie Woods has the report.

The Investigation

By Monday, several agencies were involved in finding out just what was going on in Benton.  And the Benton community began burying the dead.  Melanie Woods has the follow up on the investigation.

The Reaction

You may have noticed, some people avoided making eye contact with the camera or our reporters when they talked about the Bait Farm.  We asked neighbors and the folks of Benton if they knew that an illegal operation was underway under their noses.  They say they didn't.  But as we'll see later, federal investigators found out otherwise.

The Operation

A few weeks later, investigators talk about what they've found so far.  This isn't the only illegal fireworks operation in the area.  And this is how they think they did it.  Gene Pinder has the story.

More Arrests

And soon enough, investigators did make more arrests.  They found a similar operation in Murray County.  Melanie Woods has more on that.