Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1884 — Vanderbilt’s Treasure-Vault. [ARTICLE]

Vanderbilt’s Treasure-Vault.

I stood the other day in the vault of the formidable fortress of iron and masonry on street, where last year the richest nabob in the world locked np his $200,000;000 in stocks, bonds, and other securities. It is one of the most redoubtable works of defense on the American continent, though you may not be entirely certain of that by surveying the building from the outside. Its foundations were blasted out of the rock; the front wall is five feet in thickness, and the side and rear walls are three feet, the materials used being pressed brick with brown-stone trimmings. The beams, girders, and main pillars are iron, incased in fireproof material. The doors, window-frames, and minor partitions are iron, marble, and glass. No wood is to be found in the structure. The great vault is 36x42 feet, of wrought iron, steel, and FrankKnite iron, is imposing in strength and proportions, and is situated on the ground floor. Its four outer doors weigh 8,200 pounds each, and have every effective and known improvement in defensive devices. A massive wall of masonry surrounds the ironwork. The vault, which is burglar, fire, and water proof, constitutes a distinct building in itself. The armed watchmen who guard the building day and night are under the strictest discipline, their hourly movements being recorded by an electric clock connecting with various points on each floor of the structure, and there are also wires running to police headquarters and the offices of the district telegraph. In one corner of this great vault, behind heavy iron bars, are the heavier iron doors of the works containing the Vanderbilt securities, which can be opened only by skeleton-keys held by the owner alone. I suppose that a hundred men in this building, with Gatling guns, could easily defend it against a mob of 100,000 assailants; it could be reduced by nothing less than the continued play of heavy artillery. It may be a year since Vanderbilt, then “worth” $200,000,000, put the larger part of his possessions in the vault. He could not, perhaps, put more than $200,000,000 under guardhere at that time, but he has added’ over $12,000,000 to his fortune within a year, though it has been a poor year. Thus rapidly does the stupendous volume of his unparalleled pile enlarge. Nothing like such growth of any man’s wealth was ever before known iu the world. Every year, in the nature of things, the growth increases, so that the estimate of the best-informed men is that by the year 1890 he will be able to pile up not less than $300,000,000 in his great iron vault behind walls five feet thick. —John Swinton’s Paper.