Leeudoringstad (

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...

for ''Lion thorn city'') is a small farming town situated on the main

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

railway line in

North West Province North West is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Mahikeng. The province is located to the west of the major population centre of Gauteng and south of Botswana. History North West was incorporated after the end of Apartheid in 1994, an ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Origin

Leeudoringstad was established in 1920 and named after the Lion-thorn, the African Devil's Claw (

Harpagophytum ''Harpagophytum'' ( ), also called grapple plant, wood spider, and most commonly devil's claw, is a genus of plants in the sesame family, native to southern Africa. Plants of the genus owe their common name "devil's claw" to the peculiar app ...

procumbens).

Dynamite Disaster

The town hit the headlines on 17 July 1932 when a train carrying 320 to 330 tons (previously incorrectly stated as 1,200 tons) of dynamite from the

De Beers De Beers Group is an international corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and c ...

factory at

Somerset West Somerset West ( af, Somerset-Wes) is a town in the Western Cape, South Africa. Organisationally and administratively it is included in the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality as a suburb of the Helderberg region (formerly called Hottent ...

to the

Witwatersrand The Witwatersrand () (locally the Rand or, less commonly, the Reef) is a , north-facing scarp in South Africa. It consists of a hard, erosion-resistant quartzite metamorphic rock, over which several north-flowing rivers form waterfalls, which ...

exploded and flattened the town. Five people were killed. According to the: A.P.Cartwright "The Dynamite Company", a goods train delivering explosives from the Cape Explosives Factory to the Rand, with thirty-one trucks was loaded with 10685 cases. Just outside the station, about 1 km down the track, the driver noticed a cloud of smoke coming from one of the trucks in the middle of the train. He immediately stopped the train and was about to get down from the foot plate when a series of explosions occurred. The driver and his fireman escaped unharmed and managed to uncouple the engine and take it into the station to warn the people there that there could possibly be more explosions. A nearby farm house received the full blast and four people in there were killed instantly as well as most of the livestock. The board of inquiry found that the initial fire was due to the trailing axle of the first dynamite truck had become hot and ignited the grease and oil in the axle box. What saved the driver and fireman was that by regulation there had to be three empty trucks between the engine and the first explosives truck. The paper, "The Star" of July 18, 1932 carried extensive articles.

Agriculture

Today, Leeudoringstad hosts the headquarters of Suidwes Landbou, one of the largest agricultural companies in South Africa.

References

Populated places in the Maquassi Hills Local Municipality Populated places established in 1920 {{NorthWestZA-geo-stub