Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1894 — FAIR IS FIRE SWEPT. [ARTICLE]

FAIR IS FIRE SWEPT.

COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION BUILDINGS CONSUMED. The Peristyle In Ruins— Casino and Music Hall Devoured by Hungry F'laroes—Vast Fiery Furnace In the Great Manufactures Building. Foes of Use and Thousands. Fire licked up a laree part of the remnants of the World's Columbian Exposition Monday night. The South Park Commissioners xvili not teardown the majestic Peristyle, nor will the touch of the wrecker defile the Music Hall or the Casino. A vexed problem that touched the sentiment of the world to the quick has been solved. To-dav the Park Commissioners have to deal with ruins where proud buildings stood. Twenty thousand spectators. according to a Chicago dispatch, saw the east end of the Court of Honor vanish in smoke and flame. The fire started in the Casino, destroyed that building, then swept northward along the Peristyle into Music Hall, and from there across and into the Manufactures Building. For three hours the flames raged along the cast end of the Court of Honor until nothing was left but charred timbers and blackened plaster. A shower of sparks fell upon the ice in the lagoon until it looked like a sea of tire; they fell upon the adjacent buildings, threatening them with destruct ion. It was a magnificent spectaclo that drew ceaseless exclamations of wonder and awe from the spectators that crowded the grounds in the vicinity of the fli e. It was the greatest pyrotechnic display of the Fair. M turn fact tiros Hoof Catcher. But the work of destruction did not end with the burning of those buildings. Firebrands were earriod to the roof of Manufactures Building, and the promenade around the crown of that enormous structure was soon on lire. The wind was strong and the flames soon reached the immense woodon ventilators under the eaves, and they were soon burning fiercely. The eloro-story under the roof was qu'ckly In a blaze. F.rom this and through the great holes made in the gla-s roof fell a continuous shower of flreb ands, and in twenty minutes there wete over a dozen small conflagrations in the Belgian, French, German and English sections. Firemen and Columbian Guards fought tleie flroi so successfully that, although the facados and exhibit structures were destroyed, probably not more than a dozen coses containing exhibits were burned. The goods jeopardized represented $2,500,000; the loss is not over $100,0(0, principally by water. How much insurance is carried will not be learned for some time, as many of tho policies wore written in foieign countries. Thoro is little if any insurance on the Manufactures Building, and none on tho Casino, Peristyle and Music Hall. The fire worked clear around the inside of tho don e, burning itself out at 3 o’clock Tuesday morning. As in the Cold Storage fire, life was lost in fighting it. William Muckie. of Engine Company No. (11, fell from the Peristyle and died an hour later at Mercy Hospital. Three other mon were injured. Tho fire was discovered at 5:30 o'clock on the second floor in the northwest corner of the Casino. C. Mason, a guard on duty in Muslo Hall, saw it and ran to a fire-alarm box and tried to turn in an alarm, but the key would not work. Then he went to another box, and again failed. He tried a third with tho sumo result, and then a fourth. Thon he gave it up and huntad up a telephone, and succeeded in getting an alarm at last. By this time the flamos had gained a strong headway. Marshal Malley responded with one engine, und immediately turnod in a 4:11 alarm.

A week ago twenty engines would has e responded to this call, but owing to the changes that have boon made in the arrangoinont for firo protection at tho Fair only ten engines responded. These found that they had iporo tjl&U they could contend with, so a special sail was sent in, and this was soon followed by a second special, It was too late to attempt to save the Casino, and the firemen devoted most of their attention to saving the Agricultural Building and to checking the flames on tho Peristyle. .Tramp* Kuapectnd of Arson. It is more than probable that the fire was started by tramps. They have been fairly swarming in the Fair grounds since the first of the month, especially around the Casino and Music Hall. Thoro is no guard at all stationed in the Casino nor in fact anywhere nearer that point than Music Hall, where one man keeps watch. There is also a guard in the Convent of La Rabida. About 4 o'clock in the afternoon a dozen tramps wulked into. Music i Hall, where Guard C. Mason was on iuty. He ordered them to leave, but they made an insolent reply and [ refused to go.' Mason succeeded in I Iriving them out. They went in the direction of the Casino, and in an hour i after the fire was discovered. No one had any right to be around the Casino and there has been no fire there for months, but there were a number of old packing cases and a quantity of excelsior in the building, and if the fire was not started by design it could easily i have been started by means of a cigar ! stub or the ashes of a pipe carelessly ! emptied in the inflammable stuff that thickly covered the floor in places. | The estimates on the value of tho goods which were jeopardized by the [ire in Manufactures Building vary widely, though it is probable that $2,r JO ),00J is a conservative approximation of what remained on the floor when the fire broke out. The foreignI ers have had a hard time getting their exhibits shipped from Chicago. A !• statement pi opared by Collector Clark, at the last meeting of his chief inspectors, showed that only or.ethird of the foreign goods had been | started home. Two months have passed since tho work began. At the ■ present rate it looked as if the last of i the foreign goods would not bo out of j Jackson Park before May 1. The delay in shipment is said to bo due to the railroads. The Ilnlldlngs Destroyed. Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building was the mammoth structure j of the Exposition and notable for its ! symmetrical proportions. It was tho j largest building in area ever erected ; on the western hemisphere and the j largest under a roof in the world, j Despite its immense proportions every available foot of space in the grekt | structure was taken. It was three times larger than the cathedral of St. Peter in Rome and four times larger thafi tho old Roman Coliseum, which seated fft),ooo persons. The cost of this immense structure was $1,700,000. Material, 17,000,000 feet of lumber, 12,000,000 pounds of steei in trusses of central hall, 2,000,000 pounds of iron in root jof nave. There were eleven acres ,of skylights and forty car loads of glass in the roof. The PeriI style, with the Music Hall and Casino at either end, was the most imposing object seen by the World's Fair visitor as he approached Jackson Park and Lake Michigan. Music Hall, which

was situated on the shore of Lake Miohigan at the northerly end of the great peristyle, was 140 feet wide by 240 feet long and about 65 feet high. The Casino was one of the moat popular structures on the ground, ana it was generally admired for its beauty of architecture. It was situated at the south end of the peristyle.