An explosion at Airosol, Inc. in Neodesha, Kansas has made the company infamous in the last several days. Some surrounding cities have been forced to deal with water issues because of the accident, and while the City of Bartlesville has been fortunate to avoid those situations, they are connected in a different way.
Dr. Lyle D. Goodhue was an inventor and chemist, who created the “aerosol bomb” during WWII, which saved the lives of soldiers by killing mosquitos with malaria. When the war was over, Dr. Goodhue became the Director of Research at Airosol Inc., the same company that would suffer an accident 71 years later.
Dr. Goodhue would go on to join Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, a few years after moving to the Kansas company. He would receive 98 different patents during his time at Philips, including his creation of a chemical bird control. Dr. Goodhue retired from Phillips in 1968, and later died in 1981 in Bartlesville.