 2005 USDA aerial imagery of Powder House Island | |
 | |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Southeast Michigan |
| Coordinates | 42°06′26″N 83°08′08″W / 42.10722°N 83.13556°W[1] |
| Adjacent to | Detroit River |
| Highest elevation | 574 ft (175 m)[1] |
| Administration | |
United States | |
| State | Michigan |
| County | Wayne |
| Township | Grosse Ile |
Powder House Island (also known as Dynamite Island) is an artificial island on the lower Detroit River in southeast Michigan, directly adjacent to the Canada–United States border. It was constructed in the late 1880s by the Dunbar & Sullivan Company to store explosives during their dredging of the Livingstone Channel, with the purpose of circumventing an 1880 court order forbidding the company to store explosives on nearby Fox Island.
Powder House Island was the location of dynamite storage sheds, as well as a dynamite factory and several ice houses. During this time, it was the site of a series of accidents, including fires in 1895 and 1919 (which both burned the island "to the water's edge"). Twenty short tons (18,000 kg) of the island's dynamite exploded in 1906 after two men "had been shooting with a revolver" near it; while there were no deaths (and only minor injuries to the two men), windows were shattered 3 mi (4.8 km) away and the explosion was clearly audible from 85 mi (137 km) away.
After the completion of the Livingstone Channel in 1912, the island continued to be used for storing explosives, including during later projects to deepen the channel in the 1930s. By the 1980s it was completely unused, and by 2015 the island was owned by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, managed by its Wildlife Division as part of the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area, and accessible to the public for hunting.