12/5/2025 Trucking Madness

The explosion that tore through Interstate 44 near Springfield, Missouri in the early morning hours of September 30, 1970, remains one of the most violent and unexpected events in the history of American trucking. The sequence began with a Teamsters strike against Tri State Motor Transit, a Joplin based company known for hauling explosive materials for both civilian and military purposes. Tempers had been escalating for weeks, fueled by frustration among striking drivers who resented the company’s decision to continue operations with non union workers. Many of the men on strike were angry, tired and drinking heavily in the hours before the tragedy unfolded.

Among them was twenty nine year old Bobby Lee Shuler, a Tri State driver who joined the picket line but chose to take the dispute much further than most of his peers. He borrowed a thirty thirty rifle from another union member with the stated intention of shooting at moving trucks to disable them. Shuler was joined that night by Gerald Bowden, Bowden’s wife Sharon, and a friend identified as Mrs Kimmel who drove the car. The group set out from Joplin with a case of beer, and after reaching Springfield they encountered a Tri State truck on Highway 65. Shuler and Bowden took turns firing into its grille, disabling it and setting the tone for the violence that would follow.

After that first attack, the group continued looking for more trucks. Sometime after one in the morning, they spotted two eastbound Tri State rigs heading along Interstate 44. The first was a flatbed. The second was a tractor trailer loaded with more than forty thousand pounds of Gelex dynamite. Although the trailer carried visible warning placards, Shuler later claimed he did not see them. Even so, he had driven for the company before and knew that a significant portion of its shipments contained explosive cargo. Despite that knowledge, he ordered Mrs Kimmel to maneuver the car into position so he could intercept the approaching trucks.

Shuler stepped out near an on ramp overlooking the interstate and prepared to fire as the trucks approached at highway speed. His first two shots struck the grille of the flatbed, but the vehicle continued. He shifted to the second truck, driven by forty eight year old John A Galt of Oklahoma City. Galt was a father of four on his first run for Tri State. As Shuler fired three quick shots into the front of the second truck, the final bullet penetrated deeply enough to set off the massive load inside the trailer.

The resulting explosion produced a blue fireball that illuminated the night sky for miles. The detonation blew a crater into the highway approximately fifty feet wide, seventy feet long, and twenty five feet deep. The concussion was so powerful that it knocked Shuler to the pavement, shredded his clothing, blew the rifle hundreds of feet away, and destroyed the windshield of the getaway car. The blast leveled nearby structures, damaged buildings within a radius of several hundred feet, and shattered windows in downtown Springfield more than ten miles away.

John Galt was killed instantly and completely. The force of the blast disintegrated the truck, scattering fragments of the vehicle and fragments of Galt over a wide area. His left hand was later found nearly five hundred feet from the crater. For residents in the surrounding countryside, the explosion felt like an earthquake. Homes shook violently, livestock panicked and families awoke thinking that a jet had crashed or a pipeline had ruptured.

Shuler and his companions fled immediately. He ordered everyone into the damaged car and drove away on a shredded rim until the vehicle became inoperable in a farmyard. They abandoned it and attempted to escape on foot through open fields, eventually giving up and surrendering after daylight when they heard search aircraft and tracking dogs approaching. Law enforcement quickly connected the group to the explosion and to the earlier shooting incident on Highway 65.

In the courtroom, Shuler insisted he only intended to disable the trucks and never meant to harm anyone. Prosecutors countered that firing a high powered rifle into a moving vehicle on a public highway was inherently dangerous, and that Shuler, as a former explosives hauler, should have known the possible consequences. The jury agreed, convicting him of second degree murder. He received a ninety nine year sentence, although he ultimately served only about eight years before being paroled. Gerald Bowden received a ten year sentence and was paroled after about five years. Sharon Bowden served a three year sentence for her role in the events.

The family of John Galt pursued a civil case against the Teamsters, arguing that union leaders had helped cultivate the atmosphere of intimidation and violence that led to his death. Missouri law at the time limited wrongful death damages to fifty thousand dollars, but Galt’s widow and the estate also sought punitive damages connected to property destruction. After years of legal maneuvering, the Teamsters settled the case for two hundred twenty thousand dollars, a substantial sum that reflected the gravity of the incident and the risk of a larger judgment.

Over time, the Springfield dynamite explosion has become a grim legend in the Ozarks. People still speak of the night the interstate blew apart, the concussion that rattled windows across multiple counties, and the fiery crater that marked the spot for years. It remains a cautionary story about how quickly a labor dispute can slide into catastrophe, and how a moment of reckless anger can alter countless lives. The event also contributed to later reforms in hazardous materials regulations and helped motivate changes in Missouri’s wrongful death laws.

ÀMore than fifty years later, memory has softened few details. The crater eventually settled and the interstate was rebuilt, but the violence of that night has never been forgotten. Residents who lived through it recall the flash, the roar and the strange silence that followed. For the Galt family, for the workers involved, and for the region that absorbed the shock, the events of September 30, 1970 remain a permanent chapter in local history.