Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1898 — DEAD AMID DEBRIS. [ARTICLE]

DEAD AMID DEBRIS.

Ten Men Killed by Collapse of a Theater at Detroit. With a crash, (he noise of which was heard for blocks, the Wonderland Theater in Detroit tumbled into ruins at 2 o’clock Saturday afternoon. The roof had suddenly collapsed. At that time thirty-five men were at work in various parts of the unfinished structure. There was no warning of the calamity, and some of the victims perished instantly. Nearly every workman was swept down into the theater pit; the top gallery was crushed upon the lower gallery, forming a sort of fatal tobogugan, down which slid broken steel girders, planks, timbfra, bricks and a great quantity of cement This avalanche remorselessly carried witl it a struggling mass of men, who wer< dashed down into the pit below. Ter were killed outright, another afterwards died, and very few escaped injury. The cause of the catastrophe, while not definitely settled, seems to rest between too much weight in the roof and faulty steel beams used in its construction. The top of the roof was of cement, about eight inches thick, and many builders lean to the opinion that this was too weighty for the supporting steel work. Others say the fault lies in the steel work.