Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1895 — HORROR IN DETROIT. [ARTICLE]

HORROR IN DETROIT.

Boiler Explosion Wrecks a Building —Several Persons Killed. At about 9 o'clock Wednesday morning the boilers in the Journal Building, corner of Larned and Shelby streets, Detroit, exploded with terrific force..--That portion of the building, about forty feet wide, immediately collapsed, burying scores of people in the ruins. A great many girls and women were employed in the building. Within a short time nine unidentified bodies Ijad been taken from the ruins, and many more were Inaccessible. While the work of rescue was progressing, voices .could be heard from imprisoned sufferers. Shortly after 0 o’clock the ruins broke out in flames, and the great clouds ol stifling smoke seriously impeded the firemen in their work of rescue. A number of’stereo typers at work on the fifth floor went down with the wreck. There were from twenty-five to thirty at work in the building. The large building was cut cleanly in two from front to rear by a of which was left an almost solid pile gap 'of forty feet wide, at the bottom Of timbers, bricks and debris. At least a dozen persons are believed to have been at work in Hiller’s book bindery on the second floor. Some of those who escaped from the wreck report that they heard the screams of some of the bindery girls aS they fell and were pinioned in the wreck. The Hnbbin type foundry, on the third floor,, and theJour-, nal stereotyping deparfihentToti the lififi floor, each contributed human victims to the wreck. The members of the editorial staff on the fourth floor, however, nil escaped. Thomas Thompson, the engineer, came out of the wreck painfully injured He said he knew no reason for the ex plosion.