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[VALLEJO], CA – Saturday, July 9, 2022 and Sunday, July 10, 2022, 3:00pm-4:00pm, the Mare Island Heritage Trust will host a 105th Anniversary Remembrance at the Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve to mark the 105th anniversary of an explosion at the Mare Island Naval Magazine (Ammunition Depot) determined by the US Navy to be the work of an enemy agent at the beginning of WWI. Now, 105 years after the explosion killed Chief Gunner Allen S. MacKenzie and his wife and 2 youngest daughters, along with 2 civilian employees, new evidence points to the cause as a murder-suicide. The case for this new conclusion is made in an article by Historian and Author Stephen C. Ruder, published in the June 2022 issue of the Naval History Magazine, a publication of the U.S. Naval History Institute. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2022/june/who-really-blew-mare-island

Saturday, July 9, 2022 is the 105th anniversary of an explosion that rocked the US Navy and its’ naval base at Mare Island and killed 6 people, four of which were the Chief Gunner of the Mare Island Naval Ammunition Depot, Allen S. MacKenzie, his 39 year old wife Malvina and their two youngest daughters, Dorothy, age 12 and Mildred, ‘Millie”, age 8. The additional two deaths were the Ammunition Depot Gardener and the longest serving employee of the Ammunition Depot. Join Myrna Hayes, founding manager of the Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve from 2007-2019 and President of the Mare Island Heritage Trust Saturday, July 9 and Sunday, July 10 for a presentation and a guided tour of the explosion site, the location of the home in which the family was killed and a walk to the Mare Island Naval Cemetery to visit the graves of the MacKenzie family. The public may consider bringing flowers to place at the gravesite in remembrance of the family. The guided tour begins at 3:00pm at the former visitor center parking lot 167 O’Hara Ct. and will be from one half hour to 45 minutes in length. The Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve is located at the southernmost end of Azuar Dr. on Mare Island in Vallejo, CA. Meet Myrna Hayes at the parking lot. Call/text her with questions and for directions. phone: 707-249-9633. email: myrnahayes@mac.com The Mare Island Shoreline Heritage Preserve is open Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 8:00am-5:00pm.

Myrna Hayes has written an e-book (Link to the e-book is on the Mare Island Preserve website: mareislandpreserve.com) about the MacKenzie family and the explosion that occurred July 9, 1917 with personal information about the family, excerpts from investigation reports and references to newspaper articles, excerpts from the Cemetery book by Peggy O’Drain and Joyce Giles of the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation and a link to the June 2022 publication of an article by Stephen C. Ruder in the Naval History Magazine in which he provides a convincing argument for an alternative cause of the explosion from the one the US Navy reached a conclusion of in 1917 and up until now. Note: This link is only available without the PayWall until July 22, 2022. https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2022/june/who-really-blew-mare-island