Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1908 — BIG FIRE LOSS. [ARTICLE]

BIG FIRE LOSS.

Chicago Suffers a Two Million Dollar Blaze. WORST CONFLAR6ATION SINCE' 71 Starts la Elevator District and Wipes Oat Large Buildings Like Chaff. v I Chicago, 111., August 3.—Heralded by hundreds of tremendous explosions, one of the largest , and most spectacular fires that Chicago has known in 30 years swept the great railroad and elevator districts between State and Canal streets, south of Twelfth, this afternoon. A freighthouse, , several hundred feet long, stored with soda, potash, saltpeter, oil, and even, it is said, nitro-glycerine, two huge graiii elevators, containing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of corn and wheat, hundreds of freight cars loaded with valuable merchandise, and many smaller buildings were burned to the ground, causing a loss of $1,600,000. The Main Losses. The principal losses suffered in the fire were: Elevator E —Owned by the Burlington Railroad and operated by Armour & Co.; $150,000. Elevator F—Owned and operated by same respective companies; $150,000. * Armour & Co., 500,000 bushels of wheat in one elevator and 200,000 bushels in another; $675,000. Armour & Co. —100,000 bushels of corn; $76,000. Union Elevator—Owned and operated by Armour A Co., south of the dock freighthouse; loss on grain caused by and water, $50,000. Dock freighthouse, belonging to Burlington, and contents; $200,000. One hundred loaded freight cars; loss, Including contents, $200,000. Two passenger v coaches, SIO,OOO. American Refrigerator and Transit Company, Fourteenth and State streets, cooling house and contents, $3,000. Total, $1,808,000. Put City In Terror. v A colossal wall of flame, hundreds of feet long and more than 2QO feet high, capped by an enoromus pall of smoke, warned the whole city of the fire, and brought terror to thousands of hearts. This terror was increased when the high wind from the Southwest carried flaming brands for half a mile and more and started scores of biases remote from the main fire. In this feature of the fire lay the chief danger, and it was only by the most desperate efforts of the Fire Department that the loop district was saved from flames. The heat was terlfllc, box cars and small buildings hundreds of feet from the fire bursting suddenly into flames as if by spontaneous combustion.

Whole companies of firemen were prostrated at a time and the slightest change in the direction of the wind would have wiped out scores of the valiant fire fighters.. The men, drenching thetnselves In water, crawling with averted faces through tepid pools, carried their heavy load of hose through suffocating smoke and terrible heat close to the tottering walls of the burning buildings. Flames Spread Rapidly. Within an hour after the fire started the whole railroad yards to the north of the freighthouse and elevators were in flames. The yards are half a mile long and a qftarter of a mile wide, and the southwest wind carried volumes of smoke and flaming cinders over them, setting fire to box cars, passenger coaches, piles of rubbish, the plank L roadways, between the tracks, and the roadbed ties. From Sixteenth street to the Twelfth street 'viaduct the yards were %n flames, and even the sidewalks of the viaduct were burning in places. / For a time it looked as if the whole yards would go, but a shift of the wind to the west carried the smoke and cinders 14 another

direction and enabled the firemen and railroad employes to make headway In their fight. The west wind, however, carried showers of sparks over the river to the East, setting fire to several freighthouses and two scores of cars in the yards between Clark and State streets and keeping several companies busy extinguishing incipient biases along State street, Wabash avenue and Michigan avenue, from Polk to Sixteenth street. The Fatal Cigarette. The fire began with explosions in the freighthouse, supposed to have been caused by the throwing of lighted cigarettes among the chemicals destined for a powder factory, and for over an hour terlfllc explosions shook the ground every minute. . The freighthouse extended along a Blip several hundred feet back from the river, and as the floor of the dock burned through, the explosions affected the water in a remarkable manner. At each explosion, and sometimes they followed each other so rapidly that it was impossible to count them, the water along the dock shot up in the air as if submarine mines had been exploded in the slip.

The spread of the flames through the whole length of the freight house was almost instantaneous, and their fierceness, aided by the inability of the first companies on the scene to get water, left the great building a heap of smouldering ruins within an hour. Gi%in Burned fiercely. For several hours the freight house was a steaming mass of debris. The towering elevators, with their hundreds of thousands of bushels of wheat and corn, burned fiercely. They adjoined the freight the north, and each was several hundred feet long. At times from the ground to their lofty cupolas, over 200 feet in the air, and throughout their entire length, they were so enveloped in flames that the walls could not be seen. An example of the terrific heat engendered by the burning freight house and elevators was seen when a tool house, located 100 yards from the fire, broke suddenly into flames, apparently by spontaneous combustion. It was burning from floor to roof in an instant, and in of a deluge of water, instantly turned upon it, was destroyed. Train Service Blocked. Train service on the Pennsylvania, Burlington, Rock Island and Chicago and Alton lines was impeded and all trains entering the Union Station were forced to make detours. Street car traffic, also, was held up for blocks from the fire. The Erie freight house and the recently constructed Wabash freight hpuse, on the east side of the river, caught fire repeatedly in spite of the fact that they were drenched with water by a bucket brigade of clerks and other employes. All of the freight cars in the Rock Island tracks opposite the fire were hauled to places of safety, but on the other side of Clark street in the rfads of the Wabash, Santa Fe and «stern Illinois there were too mlny cars for this to be done. As a result four engine companies, two truck companies and two chemical companies, under command of Assistant Chief Egan, were kept busy extinguishing fires. Thirty fires' started in this territory during the same period on roofß and awnings and in back yards along State street. Wabash avenue and Michigan avenue. The most serious of these fires was that which attacked, the cooling house of the American Refrigerating and Transit Company, on Fourteenth street, near State. The whole Toof was burned off the building, which was filled with butter and eggs, but owing to tfce wa-ter-proof floors they were not injured. The loss on the building was about $3,000. A car, No. 72,461, loaded with powder coil, caused a great dear of trouble in the Wabash yards. It caught fire twice, and was then hauled to a place of safety. Destruction Complete. Of the two elevators that were destroyed, Elevator E, which was the north one, contained SIOO,OOO worth of wheat and SIOO,OOO worth of corn. The other one, F. was filled almost to its capacity with wheft. Both of them and their contents were destroyed. The freight house • which was destroyed Was valued by the Burlington authorities at $60,000, but no exact estimate could be given as to Abe value of its contents or that of the numerous freight care consumed by the flames. Two large freight-

era had recently unloaded all their contents at the freight house, and it is known that it was filled almost to its capacity. Several hundred barrels of oil, a ship load of soda and 800 tons of saltpeter were among the contents. Another element in the loss was the destruction of ,the recently built dock of the Burlington Road along the slip and the river. This was burned to the water’s tdge in many places. The most remarkable feature of the fire was the absence of fatal accidents or numerous serious Injuries. Only one man is known to have been seriously hurt. Joseph Wayne, 40 years old, 244 Forquer street, fell from the top of a freight car from which he was watching the fire, breaking an arm and leg and suffering internal injuries. “It is safe to say,” Bald Fire Chief Horan to-night, "that for two hours tomay Chicago was at the mercy of fire. For more than two hours I was in dread that the conflagration would sweep all over the city. If the flames had got to the South we would have had another Chicago fire greater than 1871.” During the height of the fire a rumor spread that six firemen had been caught under a falling wall and killed. Chief Horan denied this report, saying that all the firemen had been accounted for, and that the fire had caused no injuries beyond the usual quota of scorched hands and faces. The police also denied that the sere had been accompanied by fatalities, saying that so far as could be learned all the workmen employed in the struct tures had* esoaped.

The Ohio Farmers Insurance Company has been doing 60 years, writing fire, lightning and cyclone Insurance, on both city town and farm.* property, also on live stock, and hay in barn or in stack.’ It will be to your interest to see me before placing your Insurance. J. C. PORTER, Agent.