New London Museum and Cenotaph

The New London Museum, at 690 South Main in New London, stands in the shadow of the memorial cenotaph, across the street from what is now West Rusk High School. On March 18, 1937, at 3:05 in the afternoon, natural gas that had leaked beneath the school exploded and killed hundreds of students and teachers. Volunteers, among them survivors and relatives of the dead, run the museum, and its docents have included a man whose sister died in the blast.

The displays are personal. A model of the school shows the crawl space and the gas line. The school had tapped a pipeline of cheap waste gas to save on heating, and the gas was odorless, so a leak went unnoticed until a spark. A blackboard preserves the day's lesson, dated March 18, 1937. Perry Lee Cox's penknife, painted with fingernail polish, helped his parents find him that night. There are condolence messages from around the world, an odorizer device and a video, Healing, of survivors speaking. Texas then required odorizers in natural gas, and survivor Carolyn Jones spoke to the Legislature.

The cenotaph, of Texas pink granite and raised in 1939, was designed by Donald S. Nelson and sculpted by Herring Coe; stones facing it list the known victims by grade. The museum's phone is 903-895-4602. Published hours have been weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with Saturdays in spring and summer, so call before you drive out.