CHATSWORTH, Ga. — Recently, the owner of the Goswick Store on Highway 286 in Murray County passed away, and the new owners found more than they bargained for when they discovered eight sticks of dynamite, according to the Murray County Sheriff’s Office. 

On Thursday, members of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation bomb squad and Murray County authorities disposed of the dynamite, which sheriff’s office Chief Deputy Brian Ingle said was stored in the back of the building dating to the 1930s. Blasting caps for the dynamite were also found. 

“The new owner found it and once they realized what they had, they called us,” Ingle said. “Getting it out of the building was the biggest issue. They couldn’t get the (GBI) robot to it, so eventually they had to bring it out. Pressure and jarring it was the biggest concern.”

Ingle said the store has been in existence for the past century, and the sticks of dynamite had sweated out chemicals that had hardened. He said once the sticks were removed they were properly disposed of with fire. 

“We had the county road department dig us a three-foot-by-three-foot pit and put a wood pallet and wheat straw and the dynamite in there and doused it with diesel fuel and lit it up,” Ingle said. “You just set it on fire and let it burn out. The blasting caps, they actually had to detonate those, and the bomb unit had a little package with what looked like gunpowder and ran a detonator cord from it and set the charge to dispose of those.”

Highway 286 was closed Thursday afternoon and traffic detoured while the dynamite and blasting caps were disposed of between 1 and 2:30.