Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 April 1908 — MILE AND A HALF OF RAGING FLAME [ARTICLE]

MILE AND A HALF OF RAGING FLAME

Chelsea, Mass., Swept by a Great Conflagration. DOST OF IT ABOUT $11,000,000 Three Persons Meet Death and Scores Injured More or Less Seriously. MANY HAVE TO FLEE FOB LIFE i Petroleum. Tarred Paper. Old Rage . and a Gale Add Fury to Disaster—Ten Thousand Homeless.

The greatest fire that has scourged Ey part of the metropolitan district in i years devastated the manufacturj, tenement and retail sections of [Chelsea, Mass., Boston’s big suburb, Sunday, burning over one square Imile of territory and leveling many of the city’s best structures. The fire started at 10:40 a. m. and was not under control until 9 p. m„ notwithstanding that half of [the Boston fire department’s strength, (and steamers from a dozen other citpea and towns, went to the aid of the .Chelsea brigade. The loss is estimated [at about *10,000,000. About 10,000 persons are homeless. So far as can be [learned there were but three fatalities, 'all unknown. Half a hundred perigons were either injured or painfully burned. Mile and a Half of Ruins. | The fire originated in the rear of the [Boston Blacking company’s works on (West Third street, near the eastern division of tiie Boston and Maine railroad and In close proximity to the Everett City line. A terrific gale from [the northwest, which at times had a [velocity of sixty miles an hour, carried burning shingles, embers and myriads |of sparks to a score of wooden bulldings, most of them of cheap wooden Enstruetion. The fire started almost the extreme southwest section of p city, and cut a path to th? end of (Maverick street at the extreme south'eastern end, about one and a half miles from where it began. 1 Thirteen Churches Feed the Fire. ! Flames spread through the heart of (the retail business section, which was labout midway between the two extreme limits reached by the fire. 'Among the structures destroyed were thirteen churches, two hospitals, the iPublic library, city hall, five schoolhouses. twenty business blocks, nearly a score of factories, and upwards of 3f«t tenements and dwelllnghouses. Among the places burned were: Frost hospital, Children's hospital. Fitz public library. St. Stanislaus Polish Roman Catholic church, Chestnut Street First Baptist church, Central ’Unitarian church, St. Luke’s Episcopal church, First Methodist Episcopal Irburch, Elm Street Synagogue, Walnut Street Synagogue, Chelsea Presbyterian church. People’s Afro-Methodist Episcopal church, Fourth Street Uuiversalist church, Fifth Street Congregational church, Shurtieff Street Methodist Episcopal church, Second Adventist church.