 The buildings of the Krümmel factory itself were destroyed in 1866 and again in 1870.In April 1866, the company shipped three unmarked crates of nitroglycerin to California for the Central Pacific Railroad, who wished to experiment with its blasting capability to speed the construction of a tunnel through the Sierra Nevada for the First Transcontinental Railroad.One of the crates exploded, destroying a Wells Fargo office in San Francisco and killing fifteen people, leading to a complete ban on the transport of liquid nitroglycerin in California.