Q: You wrote recently of the Marietta drugstore explosion in 1963. I believe a few years prior, there was also a big drugstore explosion in downtown Villa Rica. Is my memory correct?
—Tom Jackson, Watkinsville
A: Ethyleen Tyson remembers many of the details of Dec. 5, 1957.
The confusion. The sirens. The fear.
And she remembers her good friend Carolyn Davis, who was one of 12 people killed that day when Berry’s Pharmacy and part of downtown Villa Rica were destroyed in a natural gas explosion.
“That was just a terrible day here,” said Tyson, who has lived in Villa Rica her entire life.
Downtown Villa Rica was busy around 11 a.m., as folks went to vote in local elections or stopped to shop. Berry’s Pharmacy had a lunch counter, she remembers, so no doubt, some people had already sat down for a sandwich and Coke.
“They had smelled gas around there for a couple of days and Mr. (O.T.) Dyer and his son (Johnny) went to check out the scent of the gas,” Tyson said. “They went under the building and it exploded.”
The drugstore, the upstairs dentist’s office and other buildings were gone in an instant.
“There was stuff strewn all over Villa Rica,” Tyson said. “Highway 78 was the only road into town in those days – I-20 wasn’t built yet – and WSB and the radio announcers were telling people to stay off the road so the emergency workers could get to town. But people were coming from all the surrounding counties. It was chaos.”
Friends, neighbors and strangers immediately began to free those buried under rubble and search for bodies. Doctors and nurses worked without breaks as the wounded were taken to area hospitals.
The Dyers were two of the 12 who were killed.
Tyson said Davis had taken a friend’s son to the dentist. All three were now dead. As was Margaret Berry, whose family owned the pharmacy.
At least 20 others were wounded.
“Everybody knew everybody (in Villa Rica),” Tyson said. “It took a long time to get over that.”
Other than memories, there are reminders of the disaster.
A small granite memorial is across the street from the rebuilt building where Berry’s Pharmacy once stood. And there is a historical marker, placed 50 years after the blast.
The Berry family renovated the building about 10 years ago to make it look like it did at the time of the blast, Villa Rica Mayor J. Collins said. It now houses the Chat & Choo restaurant and apartments.
“That was done as a tribute to their mom and dad,” he said.
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