Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1899 — HEAVY ARCHES FALL [ARTICLE]

HEAVY ARCHES FALL

COLLAPSE OF CHICAGO'S NEW COLISEUM STRUCTURE. Crash Comes Without Warning to Workmen, and Mani Are Caught Beneath Heavy Rnins-In Addition to Nine Killed, Thirteen Are Injured. Iron girders creaked: there was a shout, “Look out! it’s falling!” a wild rush of men on the ground; the agonized cry of thirty bridge workers as they were hurled sixty-five feet through the air; and the framework of the new Coliseum, Wabash avenue and Fifteenth street, Chicago, Monday afternoon at 5 o’clock was a wreck, and under its ruins nine men lay dead, thirteen injured, many of them fatally, and five were missing. Workmen of the Pittsburg Bridge Company, the firm which did the iron work, were tearing down the traveler used in building the twelve great arches. During the lowering of the first section the structure was noticed to tremble, and complaint was made by several of the men. Then came the taking down of the massive beams that formed the second section. A rope thrown over the third arch from the south wall was used to steady the pieces of lumber as they descended. One was poised in the air and Engineer McCabe waited below for the signal to lower. Suddenly the engine gave a snort, the arch tremblgd, began to sway. Then came the shout of alarm, the race for safety and the collapse of the building. Men on the ground ran through the arches, now beginning to creak like breaking laths, and most of them had time to reach the street or the alley, but their unfortunate companions on the arches came slowly down to injury and death. The movement of the arches was at first so slow it seemed as if minutes were consumed before they swayed far enough to touch each other. When they came together there was the sound of vending iron girders and braces, the breaking of rivets and trusses, and the whole structure came down with a crash, while the doomed men shrieked out their last prayers as they were dashed against piles of unused braces or fell under portions of the broken arches. One of the falling columns overturned the boiler and the escaping steam covered the wreck with a blinding veil, white clouds of dust rose from the earth to baffle the search foT the wounded, some of whom called ouf piteously. Columns and arches lay piled on one another, broken and shattered as though they were staff; heavy timbers, two feet square, were twisted and splintered as if they were twigs, and beneath this mass of iron and wood and stone human beings were writhing in pain or were lying cold in death. Fire added to the horror, the overturned engines kindling the woodwork near them, but these incipient blazes were soon extinguished and the whole attention of firqmen, policemen and citizens was given to rescuing the victims and taking out the bodies of the dead. There were hundreds of willing hands to help drag the iron beams from the crushed and battered fragments of men and to carry the bodies tenderly to the ambulances. The living were first taken from the ruins, but at times the rescuers found it difficult to determine whether or not the mangled forms they carried so tenderly still retained the spark of life. Nine men were dead. Their bodies were taken out mutilated almost beyond human semblance by the blunt edges of the ponderous metal beams. Twelve other unfortunates, still alive, but shrieking and writhing with the pain of cruel injuries, some of them legless, others making piteous appeals with the stumps of what were once arms, were removed, and more dehths may follow. It bas not yet been decided where the loss, which may reach $30,000, will fall. The work of the Pittsburg Bridge Company was just finished, the last arch having been placed Saturday. The men were placing the bolts and rivets Monday and removing the traveler and scaffolding used in doing the work. Members of the firm were congratulating themselvek that they had had no accident, and the work was done. But the work had not been accepted by the Coliseum company and tlfe question of responsibility for the loss on the building rests unsettled. The exact cause for the collapse seems to be unknown, at least those supposed to know hesitate to put themselves pn record. Many theories are advanced, bill it may require an official investigation to bring out the truth and properly place the responsibility.