Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — RUIN AT THE FAIR. [ARTICLE]

RUIN AT THE FAIR.

SEVEN MAMMOTH STRUCTURES SWEPT AWAY. Admin Ist ration's Golden Dome and Corona Pall In Ashes— Manufactures Building Based to the Ground—Large Portion of the Exposition Grounds Devastated. A Sea of Fi t me. A year ago the Court of Honor of the fair “White City” stood in unrivaled splendor upon the shore of Lake Michigan, and thousands reveled in it 9 beauty. Thur. day night it passed away in fiery sp endor, and thousands mourned it 3 fall. Blackened and twisted arches of iron, with their girders sagging under the weight of torn sheets of roofing, rear their skeleton forms where the buildings of the beautiful city once stood. Beneath them lie huge mo nds of smoldering ruins frosted with a waste of snowy ashes. Tangles of wire the mis-hapen hulks of fallen statuary and long rows of blistered columns mark the outlir.es of avenues and drives. The parapets, the bridges, and the wide sweep of f tail-casing which flanked the buildings have been licked up by the fire to the water’s edge. Every other at.ack of the elements, fire, wind, cr water, was as nothing before this all-devouring tornado of liame which swept from end to end and laid low every important building left standing b.v the wrecker. The World’s l*air buildings are in ruins.

Beginning with the huge weatherbeaten remains of the terminal station at the south of the grounds, the fire sped rapidly nortaward, and in the course of its progress completely destroyed the following structures: Terminal Building. Administration Building. Mines and Mining. Electricity. Manufactures. Machinery. Agricu ture. Stock Pavilion. Philadelphia Case. One man lost his life in the flames and another received burns from which he may die. Besides these a number of persons received minor injuries. Save l by a Cha life of Wind. The firemen made no attempt to save the buildings alter they were once ablaze, but devoted every effort to prevent the fire from spreading. The transportation and government buildings were saved only by tho most jerBistent efforts of the firemen At one time it looked as if all the buildings at the north end of the erreunds wculd be swept away, but a change of the wind from the southwest to the northwest prevented the flames from advancing. A dispatch from Chicago says that a few minutes after (i o'clock Park t oliceman John Reynolds saw two spirals of blue smoke curling lazily upward from a window in the southwestern corner of the Terminal Building. Hastening over to the spot he burst into the building through a broken door. A stifling gust of smoko rolled out. Penetrating t > the center of the building he saw a point of flame 6hoot upward from under a stair-case in the corner. Fanned by tho bre;ze from the open door the whole end of the structure was a mass of flame in less than a moment. Reynolds ran rapidly across to machinery hall and turned in an alarm. When he returned the fire was playing hide-and-seek in the ornamental cornices. It had not yet felt its power. By some stra ige fatality the crew of the World's Pair station was a mile away extinguishing a little blaze at the corner of 71st street and Stony Island avenue. It was a full half hour after the first alarm sounded before the first feeb’e stream broke into spray at tho raves of the tall building. It was too late. The fire had found its power. The walls of the terminal station which still remained standing gaped wide with cracks through which glowed the volcano of fire within. Tho flames lighted up whitely the faces of the thousands of spectators who came streaming out of the park from every street. Some of them shouted “Fire.” “Fire,” at the top of their voices, but they could r.ot be heard above the roar of the flames. The dry building with its lath and staff roof and wooden girders burned like tinder. A billowy cloud of smoke arose slowly until the upper eni o£ the cloud resembled a huge balloon, the top of which was first crimsoned with the rays of the setting sun. Suddenly the northern wa ll of the building fell wiiji and there was an illumination of fire-works greater than any that ever graced a summer evening during the Fair. Nothing could stay the flames, and the / swept on until all thd, buildings in their fiery path were in ruins.