Bath, Michigan: The Bomb Beneath the Children. The true crime history of the Bath School Disaster begins with an almost impossible fact: for months, children attended class directly above explosives hidden beneath their school. On May 18, 1927, the small farming community of Bath Township, Michigan became the site of the deadliest mass murder at a school in American history. Nearly a century later, the Bath School Disaster remains one of America’s most disturbing pieces of forgotten history. But this story did not begin with an explosion. It began with a town trying to build something better. In the 1920s, Bath was a rural community where children were scattered across small one-room schoolhouses. Residents voted to consolidate those schools and build a modern school that could give local children opportunities their parents never had. One school. One community. One symbol of progress. Then a trusted member of the school board began quietly hiding explosives underneath it. Andrew Philip Kehoe was not a mysterious outsider. He was a local farmer, taxpayer, school board member, and school board treasurer. He had access to the building. He understood machinery and electrical systems. When people saw him working inside the school, they had little reason to suspect what he was actually doing. For months, while children learned, laughed, passed notes, and waited for summer, Kehoe continued preparing the building for destruction. And on the morning of May 18, 1927, his plan began. Inside This Mystery: • The dark history behind the Bath Consolidated School • How a small-town crime grew from resentment and obsession • Why Andrew Kehoe had access to the school for months • The forgotten history of more than 1,000 pounds of hidden explosives • Why the Bath School Disaster remains one of America’s most overlooked true crime stories This is Part 1 of the Yore Town investigation into the Bath School Disaster. We uncover how Bath built the school, who Andrew Kehoe was, how he gained the trust and access needed to move through the building, and how the children of Bath unknowingly spent months sitting above a massive cache of explosives. Then May 18, 1927 arrived. The farm began to burn. The school exploded. And when the man responsible drove into the chaos, the attack still was not over. Every town has a past. Yore Town uncovers the real stories, forgotten crimes, and local mysteries that time tried to bury. Timestamps 00:00 — A school that changed what a tiny farming community believed it could become 00:31 — Why Bath needed one bigger, modern school 01:00 — The shocking reveal: a trusted school board member begins hiding explosives under the school 02:01 — The date no one expects: May 18, 1927 02:30 — “An angry farmer blew up a school” 02:59 — The children were sitting above explosives for months 03:27 — What ordinary school days looked like in the 1920s 04:05 — Intro and background on Beard Laws and Meg 04:30 — Setting the scene in Bath Township, Michigan 05:58 — Why Bath’s rural school system was changing 09:15 — The vote to create a consolidated school 10:42 — Andrew Philip Kehoe is introduced 12:19 — Kehoe’s background, skills, and mechanical knowledge 13:23 — Financial pressure, school board involvement, and growing resentment 15:16 — The school becomes the enemy in Kehoe’s mind 16:12 — Why the kids inside mattered most 17:11 — Losing an election and the escalation of grievance 18:10 — His access to the building helped hide what he was doing 19:25 — Explosives and pyrotol in the school basement 20:21 — The horrifying time span: over a year and a half of preparation 22:19 — The story moves to May 1927 23:14 — Families go to bed expecting a normal school day 24:37 — The morning of the attack and the destruction at the school 25:07 — The school was only one part of the plan 25:58 — Fire and explosions at Kehoe’s farm 26:28 — Neighbors rush in to help, unaware they’re walking into the next phase of the attack 27:26 — The school explosion at 8:45 a.m. 27:54 — First rescuers dig through the wreckage with their hands 28:24 — News spreads fast and parents rush to the scene 29:40 — Kehoe arrives at the destruction he caused 30:30 — The decision to stop at part one 30:46 — The reveal: over a thousand pounds of explosive material was stashed 31:16 — Teaser for part two Part of the Beard Laws Studio network. New Yore Town mysteries every Monday — subscribe to help us uncover the past. @YoreTownPod #BathSchoolDisaster #TrueCrimeHistory #SmallTownMysteries #YoreTown #DarkHistory Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.