Our History

Our products provide earth-shaking results – literally – turning solid rock into manageable chunks for the mining industry of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.

Our company grew from the vision of Charles Mills, a mining veteran from the Midwest who saw the need for a regional source of explosives. At the time, explosives were shipped by rail from San Francisco and Missouri.

A corporation was formed and construction began south of Benson in 1920. In 1922, Apache Powder Company shipped its first case of dynamite, and by 1923, Apache’s annual production was nearly one million pounds of powder (dynamite) per month. In 1925, Apache’s general manager boasted to Tucson’s Southwestern Record: “We sold enough powder in one year that if the sticks were laid end to end they would reach from San Francisco to New York – and back again.”

Apache’s initial focus was narrow – to be a regional supplier of nitroglycerine-based explosives. In the following decades, however, the technology of mining changed.

Ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO) gradually replaced dynamite as the major source of explosive energy. Apache responded, adding ammonium nitrate-based blasting agents and nitric acid to its product base. In 1983, Apache closed its nitroglycerine operations due to declining demand. In 1990, we changed our name to Apache Nitrogen Products, Inc.

Historical Company Logos