“Mill City Film Plant Is Damaged by Blast”

Headline: “Mill City Film Plant Is Damaged by Blast”

Subhead: Famous Players–Lasky Headquarters Bombed, Belief of Police.

A mysterious explosion in the rear of the Famous Players–Lasky film headquarters, Minneapolis, at 10 P. M. Friday tore out a heavy steel door of the building and shattered windows in buildings in an area of several blocks.

No traces of a bomb could be found in the building, a three-story steel and brick structure at 1100 First avenue north, but detectives were unable to lay the cause of the blast to any other source.

Door Found Pried Up.

The explosion occurred in the rear of the building, off Eleventh street north, in a room in which films are stored.

It was apparent that the large steel door at the rear of the building, which was blown, had been pried up at the bottom before the explosion. A police gun squad which was half a block away when the blast sounded, rushed to the building, but found no one around.

Windows of the Dayton company warehouse and barns, across the street, the Wells Memorial building and several other film exchange offices in the same block were broken.

Strike Connection Scouted.

W. A. Steffes, president of the Motion Picture Theater Owners of the Northwest, discounted a theory that there might be some connection between the explosion and the strike of the Twin Cities theater employes.

M. Steffes [sic] received two mysterious telephone calls Friday in which he was told, “We’ll get you,” but he said he believed the calls to be work of harmless cranks.

“I do not believe the strikers had anything to do with the explosion,” he said.