Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1909 — AUTO’S PLUNGE IN RIVER A MYSTERY [ARTICLE]

AUTO’S PLUNGE IN RIVER A MYSTERY

Theory Driver Was Hurrying to Earn an Extra Fee. MACHINE HAULED TO SURFACE Police Believe They Have Established the Identity of the Man Who Was at the Wheel of the 111-Fated Car. Thousands Assemble at the Point Where the Taxicab Sensationally Hurled Itself Into the Stream. Chicago, Nov. 9. —Who died in the plunge of a taxicab from Jackson boulevard through an open bridge into the. Chicago river? Who was the woman and the man who so gallantly tried to save her In. the inky waters of the stream? Were there more than the one couple and the motorneer? How did the driver come to make the fatal mistake? These are some of the questions all Chicago is asking and that the police are trying to answer. The accident was due to an effort on the part of Ernest Camp, chauffeur for John W. Schreffler, to crowd an extra trip into his time schedule, and make a little extra money. Camp had made an appointment to appear at the Colonial theater at 10:45 p. m. He was asked a few minutes after 10 o’clock to take a party to the west side; and, hoping to get the extra fare, he raced toward htq new destination and not seeing the danger signals at the bridge drove the car into the yawning gap to his death. At the Colonial theater the party Camp was to meet waited an hour for the expected chauffeur, who at that moment lay dead beneath the waters of the river. The fire department, assisted by a derrick dredge, recovered the automobile from the river. Fully 20,000 people filled bridges and the river banks and saw the taxicab hauled out of the water. A scow with a powerful crane was sent to the-bridge, and Dave Hansen, municipal diver, panoplied in his helmet and armor, was let down and fastened a great chain securely to the sunken machine. . The scow then brought its powerful crane into play and lifted the automobile out of the muddy river bottom and onto the craft. A cheer went up from the assembled thousands, but it was quickly hushed. The police shook their heads in disappointment, for they had hoped that the bodies of some cf the victims might be recovered with the smashed and battered machine. The fall had torn the body of the taxicab completely off the chassis, liberating at least two of the occupants only to have them drown in the sight of the bridge tenders who tried in vain to save them.