The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1877-08-09
More Fire HOrrOrs-Terrible Disaster
i'm Cincinnati,

Pelstring's cigar box factory, on Broadway,
near Eighth Street, was burned to the
ground, on the morning of August 8. The
fire commenced at seven in the morning,
and the flames were not fully extinguished
till late in the afternoon. We learn from
the Enquirer that the following persons were
working in the building when it took fire
Kate Wehre, corner Thirteenth and Jackson
Streets; Lizzie Huester, Thirteenth Street
Hattie Creager, No. 80 Cutter Street; Teresa
Seile and Louisa Seile, sisters, No. 656 Vine
Street, all saved; Kate Poetker, Main Street,
between Twelfth and Canal, badly burned
Mary Nurre, dead; Minnie Kuebe, Race
| Street between Green and Liberty, dead
Annie Pund, Clay Street, burned; Josephine
Bey, No. 13 Woodward Street. scorched ;
Joseph Kumper, Samuel Veitch, George
Broomer, and George Albers, all saved
Henry Bromeier, safe; Louis Untrel, burned
and taken to the Hospital, but was able to
go back to the scene of the fire; John
Plankenberg, saved, terribly burned, and
taken to the Hospital; George Stole, fore
man, Dick Schultz, Barney Rose, Henry
Nenneman, all saved; Frank Studare, lost !;
Tony Steltenpohl, Joseph Grossheim, Barney
Thole, saved; Frank Studare dead, and
Henry Mag missing, supposed to be in the
ruins. The father and mother of Minnie
Kuebe, employees in the factory, were not
at work.
Fully eight persons, five of them young
girls, as is now known, were in the fourth
story of the fatal building when it took fire.
Henry Haag, who rushed up and gave warn
ing to the girls, who had Just removed their
street clothing and begun their work (by
the piece, now lies in the ruins. John
Spangenberg, the only mature life lost,
jumped from a window after being fright
fully burnt, and was fatally injured, dying
soon after at the hospital Frank Studare,
of whose heroism in efforts to save the girls
there are confirm ed reports, was taken
out limbless, sickening trunk of black and
roasted flesh and bones. Mary Nurre, Jose
phine Bey and Minnie Kuebe's remains were
rescued in similar horrible condition, and
Katie Poetker and Annie Pund escaped
with severe burns, one of them temporarily
bereft of reason. To picture the flight of all
but one of these down the smoke-darkened
stairs; their frantic appeals for help; the
first touch of the hungry fame-tongue upon
their tender bodies; their shrieks of agony,
perhaps their farewell embraces their calls
upon father and mother, and upon the
Father of ALL must, we say, be a work of
the imagination-a task from which even
the custom-hardened reportorial pencil re-
coils. Certain it is that one can turn
almost with envy to the older head that
leaped for life to the pavement below. That
death-struggle, left to the imagination,
warmed with the narrations of those who
saw the horror, it is sad thing to refer to
the theory that one or more of the girls
might have escaped had they not endeavored
to save their good clothes, shabby enough
perhaps, but their best, the result of many
weary weeks savings. 1t is the little things
that lend pathos to a great tragedy, and
what woman, with a woman's heart, but will
send it out with warmer sympathy to the
poor creatures in their awful fate?
Just how the fire originated is a mystery
Ambrose Black, the engineer of the factory
came on duty little earlier than usual in
the morning, and had started the engine to
running slowly. He had a good head of
steam on in the boiler, and had, he says,
stepped away to attend to some other duty
in the engine-room, when he noticed blaze
in what is called the shafting-room, place
where the sawdust and stuff that they use
for fuel are placed. This room is not far
from the furnace-door, and he is confident
that spark from the furnace fell into this
mass of debris, which is as combustible as
gun-cotton, almost, and thus started the fire.