Hellfire at Lbrite Refining Co.: Worker Dies in Blazing Inferno

In a tragic and gruesome accident, Hugh Robert Christie, 30, met his untimely demise at the Lbrite Refining Co. plant in East St. Louis on August 10, 1925. Christie, a worker at the plant, was fiddling with a wrench in a gas-filled room when a spark ignited, sending flames engulfing his clothes. Panicked, Christie fled the room, but his clothes were now a mass of flames. In a desperate bid to escape the inferno, he leaped into a nearby pond, but it was too late. Christie succumbed to his injuries 14 hours later at St. Mary’s Hospital, succumbing to the burns he sustained during the explosion.