The Sparkling History of Fireworks: From Ancient China to Natchitoches
Have you ever looked up at the night sky and seen a giant flower made of purple light? Or maybe you heard a “BOOM” so loud it made your toes wiggle? Fireworks are like magic tricks for the sky, but they actually have a very long and “explosive” history! Believe it or not, fireworks were invented by accident over 1,000 years ago in China.
Some people think a cook was messing around in the kitchen and mixed charcoal, sulfur, and a special salt together. He accidentally made “black powder.” When he threw it into a fire, it flashed brightly. The first fireworks weren’t colorful at all. They were probably just bamboo sticks filled with powder. When people tossed them into a fire, they made a loud noise to scare away evil spirits. (Back then, if you wanted to scare a ghost, you just blew up some wood! Now, we go to a voting booth!) Even today, ninety-nine per cent of consumer fireworks and 90 per cent of professional display fireworks come from China.
Eventually people in Italy figured out how to make fireworks pretty. They added metal powders to the mix. If you add copper, you get blue. If you add strontium, you get red. It’s basically like a science project that ends with a giant party in the sky. As time went on, kings and queens started using fireworks to show off. They would have massive displays for weddings or to celebrate winning a war. These shows were dangerous, though. Sometimes, a “Fire Master” (that was a real job title!) would accidentally set his own hat on fire, or worse. Going by loss of life, the most awful accident (not at a factory or in shipping) was in Paris, 1770, celebrating Marie Antoinette’s wedding, where hundreds died in a stampede and explosions during the display.
Today, the biggest fireworks shows use computers. Instead of a guy with a match running around really fast, a computer sends an electric signal to the “shell” (the firework bomb). This makes sure the explosions happen perfectly in time with music. Some shows use thousands of shells in just twenty minutes!
Speaking of big shows, we have to talk about a very special place in Louisiana – Natchitoches, about an hour south of Shreveport or 4 or so north of New Orleans. It’s the oldest town in the state, and indeed oldest permanent European settlement within the Louisiana Purchase territory, but it’s famous for something else: the Natchitoches Christmas Festival.
It all started in 1927. A man named Max Burgdorf was the city’s “Superintendent of Utilities.” That’s a fancy way of saying he oversaw the electricity. He wanted to make the town look cheerful for the holidays, so he strung a few lights across Front Street. The fireworks display was conceived and initiated in 1936 by Allen Cox and Sam West, who also sourced the initial funding from local businesses. The first shows were much smaller than they are today. People didn’t have fancy computers back then. Legend has it that in the early days, the fireworks were set off from a barge in the middle of Cane River Lake, and the workers had to be very careful not to fall in! One local story says a stray firework once headed straight for a group of cows in a nearby field. The cows weren’t hurt, but they probably broke the world record for the “Highest Cow Jump” in history!
Today, the Natchitoches fireworks are a huge deal. Every Saturday from November through December, the sky over the river turns into a rainbow. People travel from all over the world – the tourist office says – to see them. Burgdorf’s initial idea has evolved into the six-week-long Natchitoches Christmas Festival, which features over a reputed 300,000 lights and numerous set pieces. The festival has grown from a few lightbulbs to thousands of strings and illustrations of lights and the huge firework display that reflect off the water. It’s so famous that they even filmed parts of Steel Magnolias here.
If you ever visit, you’ll see people eating “meat pies” (a local favorite) while watching the sky explode in vivid color. Just make sure to hold onto your meat pie tightly when the big finale happens, or the “BOOM” might make you drop your snack!
Whether it was a cook in China 1,000 years ago or a handful of visionaries in Natchitoches Louisiana 100 years ago, fireworks remind us that humans have always loved to celebrate with a big, colorful bang.
DOCTOR LEISURE: Brooms & Hammers, LLC. 107 South Drive, #126, Natchitoches, Louisiana, 71457. Jon Griffin “Dr. Leisure” Donlon enjoys and/or has studied leisure in many of its varied forms, but especially the more controversial sorts. He is a practicing artist working in drawing, painting, and photography, a published writer, and life-long boulevardier.
Doctorleisure21@gmail.com