People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1895 — HORROR AT DETROIT. [ARTICLE]

HORROR AT DETROIT.

FEARFUL LOSS OP UPB IN AN EXPLOSION. Probably Forty Ar* Killed aa a Basalt of the Blowlag Up of the Boilers ta the Detroit Journal Building—Seventeen Bodies Fouad. Detroit, Mich., Nov. 7.— The hundred or more employes of the Journal were busy early yesterday morning preparing for a political extra on the election, when suddenly a part of the building was wrecked by the explosion of boilers in the basement Seventeen bodies have been recovered from the ruins, some thirty tenants and employes in the building are still missing, and there can be no doubt that most of these are lying dead under the debris. The work of rescue was rushed at the utmost all day and night, but progress has been very slow. The debris and brick are dumped into an almost solid mass, upon which quantities of water have been poured and into which comparatively little headway has been made. The dead thus far taken from the ruins are: LIZZIE TAPLEY, aged 20, employed by Davis & Co. HENRY WALSH, employed by Kohlbrand Engraving company. JOHN J. REUTER, apprentice in the employ of Dunlap & Co. GEORGE H. SOULE, engraver. GEORGE SHAW, mailer, Detroit Journal. WILLIE HAWES, 16 years old, mailer, Detroit Journel. JAMES ROSS. WILLIAM W. DUNLAP. HENRY LARIVERE, employe mail-ing-room of Journal. CARRIE BAUER, aged 23, bookkeeper in Hillier’s bindery. HATTIE HILLIER, employe Hillier’s book-bindery. MINNIE LIESE, also bindery employe. E. L. RIEGER, machinist; family lives in Oscoda, Mich. WALTER P. SAXBY, machinist, Dunlap & Co. MICHAEL WARD, stereotyper, Journal. UNKNOWN BOY, remains found in ruins at 4:15; features unrecognizable; supposed to be John Bowman, employed by Kohlbrand & Co. UNIDENTIFIED, slight built man, body at the morgue. The injured: Cornelius George, foreman Journal mailroom. Pressman Webber, of Journal, both legs and arm broken; supposed to be fatally Injured. Tom William, assistant foreman Journal, struck on head by steam pipe; not seriously injured. Frank G. Meiner, seriously cut about head with glass. Miss Annie O’Donnoghue, arms broken; taken out unconscious. Charles Hergert, employed at John Davis & Co., bruised around head and body and scalded by acid. Willie House, mailer at Journal office. H. G. Foye, advertising solicitor on Evening News; cut about head and face. A. D, Lynch, stereotyper, band, arm and face burned; contusion of scalp. James Holt, 16 years old, employed by Speaker Printing company; deep gash across face. Martin Meyers, advertising solicitor News; cut in the neck. Carrie A. Speck, clerk; cut by flying glass. Andrew Hilberschied, machine hand. W. C. Jupp, face lacerated by splintered glass. Joseph A. Beresford, bookkeeper; slightly Injured. Lucy A. Holden, stenographer, slightly injured. Ilargaret L. Robinson, stenographer, slightly Injured. Joseph Vinter, bookkeeper; painfully Injured, but not seriously. Walter Ott, artist; hands and wrists cut. Herman Miller, office boy Calvert Lithographing company; knocked down and severely cut by falling gass. Those missing who are supposed to be in the ruins are: George J. Hillier, Anna Uhlik, Bertha Wheatbush, Anna Wheatbush, John Brietenbechar,Adolph Sdhriber, Jennie Neubower, Charles Lind, Carrie Bauer, Emma Leahenberg, John Kerber, John Bowman, Kittie Leonard, Louise Ricker, Miss Lue Fretz, James Thomas, John S. Derby, Ernest Perkins, Rose Morgan. The shock of the explosion not only wrecked a half of the Journal building and moved the other half from its foundations, but it also smashed every pane of glass within a block. The front wall of the doomed portion of the structure fell outward into the street and alley. At first it was rumored that the entire Journal staff had gone down with the wreck and the wildest alarm prevailed. When the police and firemen arrived, they found Larned street, on which the building fronted, blocked with debris. High up in the pile was seen the head and shoulders of a man whose cries could be heard above the pulsations of the engines. A heroic attempt was made to extricate him, but before he could be dragged out the flames burst out all around him and the firemen were driven back. Cries and moans were heard from those imprisoned in the wreck, but the efforts of the rescuers availed little. The fires under the boiler in the boiler-room had ignited the vast mass of paper which had come down with the floors, and soon dense clouds of stnoke blinded and stifled the workers. Mayor Pingree arrived on the scene and with characteristic energy mounted on a pile of brick and called every man within hearing to assist him in rescuing the imprisoned persons. He set the example himself and soon a hundred

pain of vflttng hands wen tearifif away at the brieka a*d beams. Another flgun was seen in the rain, and without any implement men moved gnat beams and a mass of mortar, and finally dragged out Annie O’Donohue, who was erased by fright and was srying, “O papa, save me.” Tenderly they lifted her and bon her to an ambulance, which carried her to a hospital. Before an hour the cries ceased and the workers labored simply to get out the bodies, for it was certain that those who had escaped fatal injuries from the collapse of the building had met their death in the fearful fire that had followed. The wrecked portion of the building, which is owned by the Newberry estate, was separated from the rest of the structure by a fire wall. The first floor of that section was occupied by the John Davis company, dealers in druggists’ and by the Journal mailing department. The second, third and fourth floors were occupied by the Davis company, W. W. Dunlap & Co., machinists, and Hillier book bindery. The editorial rooms of the Journal are on the fourth floor, but situated beyond the fire wall, and the staff escaped injury. The Journal stereotyping room on the fifth floor was directly in the path of the explosion and went down in the wreck. A few had miraculous escapes and came staggering from the ruins after the awful shock, scarce knowing themselves what had befallen them. ’ Arthur D. Lynch, a Journal stereotyper, who went down with tne wreck from the top floor, was pulled from the ruins entirely conscious. He was under a steam table preparing a matrix. When he fell he was protected by the great iron table, and could plainly hear the rescuers at work until they reached him. M. Jacobs, a paper dealer who had been in Hillier’s bindery, had just left the building when the crash came. He thought there must have been twenty gir s and four or five boys in the bindery, besides Gerge J. Hillier, the proprietor, of whom nothing has been seen or heard since the accident. Charles Hackett was found in the ruins in the rear, to which approach had been through the alley. Before he was removed in the ambulance he reported there had b’en four or five girls on the floor with him. Charles Hergert, a packer employed by John Davis & Co., was on the third floor when the explosion occurred. He said: “There were four others in the building that I know of—Alexander Campbell, Annie Tapley, Kittle Leonard, and Joe Vinter, the bookkeeper. I don’t know who got out alive.” From the lists of tenants and employes secured it seems certain that fifty people in all were in the collapsed section, There are still twenty-seven persons unaccounted for, and it is fair to presume that most of them are among the dead. At every hour reports are received of others who are missing, and whose relatives and friends have been unable to find any trace of them. Two of the injured who were in the hospital will probably not recover. Of those who are now in the ruins it is impossible that any will be rescued alive. Those who were not killed outright have undoubtedly perished, either from suffocation or exhaustion. The only hope is that some of those who are reported missing may be safe with friends. The total death list will not be known before tonight. It may be even longer before the workmen reach the basement floor of the ill-fated building and the total number of lives lost is known to a certainty. The work of removing the debris and searching for the bodies went on all night by the aid of electric lights. Carelessness is undoubtedly the cause of the disaster, but where the responsibility rests is as yet problematical. Thomas Thomason, the engineer, was painfully injured. He said he could assign no reason for the explosion. City Boiler Inspector McGregor says he inspected the boilers himself last August and found them up to the requirements. Some of the employes in the building assert that the boilers were old and known to be unsafe. Still others have a theory that the explosion was caused by chemicals owned by the Davis company stored in the basement Another circumstance is also considered significant, namely, that carpenters were engaged in shoring up the floor of the second story directly over the boilers in order to sustain the weight of a‘ heavy machine which had been placed in Dunlap’s machine-shop. The men who were at work at this job were buried in the ruins. The most shocking scene attending the holocaust was a struggle between Coroner Butler and an undertaker in the employ of Gies Bros, against Undertaker Frank Gibbs. The latter clung to the stretcher while the body was being carried out through the crowd, and as the spectators were becoming excited over the ghoulish scene, the police, in the interests of order, rushed Gibbs outside the fire lines and would not permit him to return. The property loss will be entire for the owners of the building and tenants. It is not believed that the ordinary insurance policies cover the loss by explosion. The loss on the ruined part of the building is about >20,000. The Evening Journal loses about |IO,OOO by the destruction of its machinery, etc. The total loss of the other tenants is placed at something over >30,000.