Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1893 — PERISH BY THE SCORE. [ARTICLE]

PERISH BY THE SCORE.

Nearly Four Hundred Street Car Horses Burn at Chicago. Frenzied with fright and driven into a stampede by a raging fire that broke out in the Wallace street barns of the Chicago City Railway Company, nearly 400 hordes were either suil'ocated or burned to death. The barn was one of the largest in the city, and one-half of it was burned to the ground. In the other half were stored eighty winter cars, worth SIOO,OOO. They were all saved, the two sections of the building being separated by a heavy brick wall. On the second floor of the portion destroyed were thirty cars, which were destroyed, together with 200 tons of hay and 500 bushels of mixed grain. The total loss as estimated by Superintendent Bowen, of the Chicago City Railway Company, was nearly SIIO,OOO. The blaze started in the very midst of the horses. At the first scent of the smoke the animals became frenzied. As the fire spread the uproar increased. All the horses were securely tied to the stalls, and there was no escape except for the few which were released from the entrances and sent galloping down the street. Eighty horses were saved. Almost 400 reared, neighed and kicked until the dense cloud of smoke from the burning hay in the loft above came down on them and put an end to their suffering and terror. Of the 381 animals that perished it is the opinion of the firemen that few were burned outright.