- On Jan. 8, 1968, a freight train derailed in Snyderville - six miles west of Springfield - and set a family's home ablaze, according to the Associated Press. The accident killed Jason Williams, 47, and injured his wife and three children. Brenda Williams, 17, was credit with saving her younger sister and brother, according to neighbors. A neighbor pulled Jason Williams and wife, Frances, 40, from the flames, according to the AP dispatch. READ MORE
- A search of Google's newspaper archives turned up a brief wire dispatch in The Age, an Australian daily from Nov. 13, 1961. It read:``Three children perished last night when fire swept through their third-floor flat in Springfield, Ohio. Their mother, with her six-month-old son, was visiting friends in a second-floor flat at the time. Firemen found the woman, Mrs. Elisa Duheart, screaming at the door to her blazing flat, attempting in vain to batter it down to rescue her children.''
- On Sept. 7, 1956, an explosion caused the collapse of a new addition to the Donnelsville School, near Springfield, according to the Associated Press. Emma Blackburn, 62, a teacher, suffered rib and wrist fractures. The explosion happened about an hour after school was dismissed for the day, the AP reported. The addition opened four days earlier.
- A search of Google's newspaper archives turned up a brief wire dispatch in The Age, an Australian daily from Nov. 13, 1961. It read:``Three children perished last night when fire swept through their third-floor flat in Springfield, Ohio. Their mother, with her six-month-old son, was visiting friends in a second-floor flat at the time. Firemen found the woman, Mrs. Elisa Duheart, screaming at the door to her blazing flat, attempting in vain to batter it down to rescue her children.''
- On Sept. 7, 1956, an explosion caused the collapse of a new addition to the Donnelsville School, near Springfield, according to the Associated Press. Emma Blackburn, 62, a teacher, suffered rib and wrist fractures. The explosion happened about an hour after school was dismissed for the day, the AP reported. The addition opened four days earlier.
- On Jan. 11, 1976, flames engulfed a house near Springfield, killing an elderly man and his two sisters, according to United Press International. Fire crews located the bodies of John Shaw, 80, Nattie Shaw, 74 and Ruth Shaw, 59 in the debris, according to Hustead fire officials quoted by UPI.
They called it ``America's long hot summer.'' In July 1967, rioting in Detroit led to disturbances in other cities. ``Springfield, Ohio, reported its first racial incidents, with rock throwing and tossing of fire bombs,'' according to the Free-Lance Star of Fredericksburg, Virginia on July 28, 1967. Trouble was also reported in the Ohio cities of Toldeo and Lorain.
- SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (UPI) - Firemen say four children playing with matches behind the Lynn Hockenson Co. here accidentally touched off a three alarm fire that swept through the cardboard box producing plant, causing an estimated $40,000 damage. [The Bryan Times, Bryan, Ohio, April 12, 1971]
