Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 37, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1905 — $5,000,000 FIRE LOSS. [ARTICLE]

$5,000,000 FIRE LOSS.

Immense Terminals of Illinois Central at New Orleans Destroyed. Fire involving millions of dollars' loss in property and giving aserious blow to the export trade of New Orleans, swept nearly a mile of the river frofrt Sunday night, destroying- the-, freight terminals of the Illinois Central, known as the Stuyvesant docks. Nearly a dozen squares of modern wharves and freight sheds, two grqin _£le.vators, hundreds of loaded cars and great quantities of freight, including 20,000 bales of cotton and 12,000 barrels of sugar, were destroyed, together with fifty sn/all residences'. It has not been determined whether there has been any loss of life, but a minuter of firemen and employes of the docks were injured. Act.ual estimates of the losses are impossible now, though they may exceed $5,000,000. The lire was discovered shortly after 7 o’clock. It was said to have resulted from a heated journal. The whole plant was equipped with gigantic water tanks and fire-extinguishing apparatus, but the blaze, small at the beginning, quickly got beyond control, communicating through the conveyors to the lower elevator and some of the sheds. In half an hour the fire covered two squares, the lower elevator was practically consumed and the fire was sweeping with irresistible fury both up and down the river. As soon as it became kiibwn that the zone of the fire was the Stuyvesant docks, harbor tugs hastened to the wharves and vessels moored there were pulled out into the river. At the same time switch engines drew hundreds of box cars loaded with freight to points above the tipper end of the terminals. Hundreds more, however, were consumed. During the fire a heavy wind blew, carrying brands to great distances and driving back the crowds of sightseers. Immense pieces of corrugated iron, torn from the sides of the upper elevator, were carried through the air as ,f they were feathers, and dropping in ?very direction constantly endangered the Jives of firemen and spectators. Aside from the tremendous loss involved in the destruction of property rhe fire is a calamity to New Orleans in the temporary abatement of the immense export business of the Illinois Central, particularly in the matter of grain shipments.