The legend of the "wild west" grew quickly, and the possibilities of the frontier allowed people in the west to press outrageous stories that were reported happily as fact in the East, which was ready to believe just about anything could happen in that uncivilized land.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.