Iowa barn lightning fires and cattle losses

Used to trace the historical development of lightning protection codes from Ben Franklin (1752) through Underwriters Labs master labels through NFPA 780. The chairman of the NFPA 780 committee is identified as an Army employee interested in ammo dump strikes.

After Ben Franklin did his thing with his kite and his string — and he's lucky he didn't electrocute himself — but nonetheless, in 1752, the earliest literature available proposing protection from lightning starts with Ben Franklin. People started proposing to put lightning rods on tops of houses. This document develops the history on the next page, goes through the Iowa fire marshal records. Lightning was burning down a bunch of cow barns, and they were having roast beef every night they had a thunderstorm.