Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1887 — NAPTHA EXPLOSIONS. [ARTICLE]

NAPTHA EXPLOSIONS.

Mills and Sewers Damaged by a Series of Fires and Explosions at Rochester, N. ¥. Wednesday afternoon an explosion of gas took place at the Jefferson and Clinton flouring mills, on Mill street, in Rochester, and they were speedily enveloped in flames. The fire department was summoned, and soon after a general alarm was turned in. Before the department had reached the station at the corner of Mill and Platt streets, the entire city was alarmed and shaken by a number of explosions. Immediately following huge clouds of smoke arose from a half dozen points on Mill and Platt streets, and flames burst from the window of the Clinton mill, just n„r!h of the Woodbury Engine building on Mill street. The flames soon spread to the Washington mill, which adjoins the Clinton mill, and before anything could be done to prevent the spread of the fire the rear of Whitney & Wilson’s mi’l was also in flames. While the firemen were laying a line of hose to the burning buildings, half a dozen manholes, which had been covered with ice and snow, blew up in Mill street. Thousands of people had been attracted by the explosions, and as they pushed through State and Platt streets to the scene of the fire they were brought to a halt by other explosions in Platt and State streets, and thrown into confusion. They fled in every direction, but wherever they went they met with a *epetition of the same scene. The explosions continued at such frequent intervals that there was no tellin when the horrors would cease. The sidewalk of the old furnace on Pla t street, between State and Mid, was blown up, but fortunately no one was injured. The building was immediately fired,however, and ,flames issued from half a dozen holes in State street where the street pavement had been blown up. The losses on the flouring mills are as follows. J. A. Hinds, Washington mill, loss $30,000, insurance $22,000; Davis & Son, Shawmut mill,loss $30,0u0, insurance $20,000; Clinton-or Pool mill, loss $50,000, insurance unknown; Wells Co., tool makers, loss SI,OOO, insurance S6OO. The destruction of the mills, it is feared, is but a small item comparatively, as the entire sewerage system of the city, it is believed, has been affected, and that section of it connected with the Municipal Gas Company’s and the Vaci um Oil Company’s u almost completely destroyed. TTie explosions were caused by the discharge of 10,000 or 16,000 gallons of naptha into the sewers, through the breakage of tht pipes by heating. It is believed that four persons were killed. The injured will number at least twenty. Most of them are bruised and. cut by stone.