Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1899 — THE HARPOON GUN. [ARTICLE]

THE HARPOON GUN.

Ingenious Plan for Removing Dangerous Ruins of Fires. A daring and ingenious plan for the the demoliskment of the high brick walls which stand in the center of the Baldwin hotel ruins l —a menacetothe lives of workmen and pedestrians—was invented and given a successful trial recently, says the San Francisco Chronicle. It was at first thought that it would be necessary to resort to the nse of dynamite to wreck these walls for removal, but a small whaler’s two-pound cannon, a liberal quantity of cable and the application of the simplest laws of mechanics in the use of the block and tackle have been found to be as efficacious and quick a remedy without the attendant dangers of the use of explosives.

A small harpoon gun was secured the other morning and mounted upon a platform built from the annex It was loaded with a rig after the fashion of a life line, consisting of a slug attached to a stout cord. The piece wag aimed at a window at the top of the rear wall of the old theater, which stood about 100 feet high. The slug was fired through the window, trailing the cord after it. A clothesline was then attached to the other end of the cord and pulled through the window. A cable was then drawn through after the line and passed around the outside of the wall and back to the roof of the annex, where it was secured to a chimney. A block-and-tackle arrangement of eight pulleys was made, and 12 men were put on the end of a rope for a tug-of-war with the wall.

When all was in readiness the street cars on Market street were stopped, and all pedestrians were warned away to a safe distance. At the first strain on the cable the high wall trembled as if distrubed by an earthquake. Successive tug? caused it to wave through an area of two or three feet before it gave way with a roar, and the tons of brick, mortar and timbers, fell with a crash and a cloud of dust to the ruins below. A man with an ax had been stationed on the outer walls, and as the mass fell it was his dangerous part to cut the cable so as to save the blocks from being dragged into the falling mass. The remainder of the walls will not be pulled down until the debris has been cleared away.