Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1892 — DEATH FROM THE SKIES. [ARTICLE]

DEATH FROM THE SKIES.

LIQHTNINQ STRIKES IN LIN. COLN PARK, CHICAGO. Three Persons Killed Under the Sheltei ol the Grant Monument, Three More Seriously Injured and Many Shocked Into Insensibility. Killed by a Bolt. Lightning laid livid Ungers upon the mammoth Urant monument in Linooln Park, Chloago, Thursday evening and the two-seore of pleasure-seekers who had crowded under the granite arches to Beek protection from the shower fell prostrate upon the stone floor. Three were instantly killed. Of the Injured one was picked up raving like a maniac, two were unconscious and another supposed to be dead. A little infant in the arms of its grandmother, who lay blackened from head to foot and utmost denuded, was taken away unharmed. The alarm was given by a park policeman who had just left the shelter, and a few moments later the clang of the ambulance bell parted the surging throng that instantly gathored about the scene of horror. The dead were lifted Into a patrol 'wagpn and sent to the morgue and the injured were taken to the German hospital. Lincoln Park was crowdod during the afternoon with men, women and children, seeking in the cool lako breezes and the shade of many trees to escape the sweltering heat of the homes and down-town streets. When, at 0:80 o’clock, the sky darkened and a stormcloud blotted out the sun, shelter was taken wherever it couM be found. The pavilions were crowdod, and many sought the questionable shelter of the trees. A large number were on the lakeside, and many were viewing the monument.

When the big drops "oamo down about eighty clustered about the great baso of the monument, fully forty crowding into the little room directly beneath the bronze soldier and horso, and as many moro standing in the roadway beneath. At 6:45 o’clock the fatal bolt fell, jarring the granite base and turning deathly pale with fear every mortal In Its embrace.

The scene that followed was appalling. For an instant those upon the ground looked into one another’s eyes, them followed scream after scream from the death chamber übovo. Meu pushed up the winding stairs at eithor end of tho arch, and wheli they looked out in the gathering gloom, made almost dark by the maßslve masonry, not a person was standing. Then began tho work of resoue. Men and women were lifted to their feet. Water was brought from the lake, in hats and sprinkled upon the blanched faces and consciousness restored to fainting ones, who hurried away from the scene.