Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-07-07
. STAMPEDE OF TEXAS STEERS.
A Herd of One Hundred and Ten Texas
Steers stampede in Chicago and Cause
Death and Destruction.

CHICAGO, June 81.
One hundred and ten wild Texan steers,
making up a herd just received by Libby,
Mcneil & Libby, broke from the driving
corral early Wednesday evening, and Gre
ated the greatest stampede and excitement
known in the stock-yards region for many
years, causing children to Shrek and women
to faint, and spreading terror and dismayin
the southwestern section. The cattle were
driving quietly until Halsted and 4oth
streets were reached, when a giant
steer sounded the alarm, and the
herd at once took 1t up. In an instant
horns went down and tails went up, and
with terrifying snorts and bellows the mad
creatures broke. For a moment the people
crowding the streets seemed dazed, but
speedily gained their senses and added
shrieks and yells to the cries and means OF
the cattle. After a concerted rush for two
blocks the herd broke and scattered in all
directions. A lot of sixty took possession
of Wentworth avenue, and cleared the
street of everything living or movable.
At this point George Sweeney, a genuine
Texan cowboy, in charge of the herd, put in
an appearance mounted o II a herder mustang
and armed with a Winchester rifle. Waving
all preliminaries, Sweeney dashed after the
Wentworth avenue section and killed nine
of the animals i'll rapid succession. He fol-
lowed another section down Thirtieth street,
killing fourteen, and when he reached South
Park avenue he put an end to three more.
Sweeney took another turn, making a sort
of skirmish detour, followed by hundreds
of men and boys armed with weapons of
every conceivable sort, ranging from a
Bridgeport sand-bag and billy to an old army
revolver, and the stag-hunt was fully and
fairly inaugurated. It was difficult to To-
cate the steers, but Sweeney directed his
volunteer army to scour the side streets, and
detachments left with a whoop and yell.
The Bridgeport citizens considered the
steers their meat, and lost no time ia secur-
ing it.
Within the Twelfth Street Police Precinct
between twenty and thirty animals were
killed. At the corner of Ashland avenue
and Rebecca street a small, cream-colored
Texan ran up against a house and was dis
patched by five p%istol-balls; at Wood and
Nineteenth streets two were killed by shot
guns and rocks; a brief but bloody battle
occurred at Morgan and Harrison streets,
where a big steer fell and broke his fore
legs, n was murdered by a saloon-keeper's
ak; Blue Island avenue was terrified, and
one steer dashed through the show-window
of a small dry-goods store, causing general
havoc. The proprietor got even by killing
the steer, and the neighbors helped dress
the carcass and carry it away.
The neighborhood of Fourteenth street
II Stewart avenue was wild with excite
ment. Five maddened animals bore down
on Mrs. Mary Mulholland, of 42O Rebecca
street, and trampled her to death. The
body was removed to the home of a married
daughter on Fourteenth street. Another
dash Of the steers carried them to Maggie
Carney, aged eight years, on her way home
from a Stewart avenue store with a pail of
milk and a loaf of bread in her hands. The
child stopped, transtixed with terror, and
the steers cruelty trampled on her, inflicting
injuries necessarily fatal. The little one
was taken up tenderly, still grasping the
milk-pail, and borne to her home on Max
well street. She has since died. One of
the animals was slain by a street-car driver,
but the others escaped.
In the vicinity Of Morgan and Maxwell
streets another steer was captured and his
head beaten to jelly with stones and clubs.
At the corner of Halsted and Meagher
streets Signal Sergeant Fox met four of the
stays, and after a desperate fight killed
them, escaping with nothing more serious
than a bruised hand. One maddened Great
ure jumped into the river at the intersection
Of Fifteenth street, and was captured by the
crew Of the outward-bound schooner Win
ME Wing. The boat was hurried upstream,
and the sailors will have plenty of fresh
meat on their voyage. At the corner of
Blue Island and Center avenues a steer
weighing 1900 pounds was killed by
q laberer with a crowbar. Scarcely
had the brute fallen when a remarkable
scene ensued. Twenty or thirty men and
women crowded around and began to fight
for the carcass. 1t was skinned in patches,
and while the body was yet quiyering the
meat was cut off in hunks and chunks and
carried off amid triumphant shouts and
laughter. In less than fifteen minutes after
the crowbar struck the animal, nothing but
the skeleton and the entIails remained, and
an old woman returned and secured the
heart and liver. The sight was little less
than disgusting, and the s~emi-cannibaIs were
shocking in their b~lood-begrimed faces and
clothing.
Mrs. German, of SO Brown street, mar
rowly escaped a terrible death. One of the
steers entered her garden, and she started
to drive it out, thinking it was a vagrant
COW. The animal lowered its horns and
was within six feet of the now terrified
woman when Officer La Plant rushed UP
and planted a bullet in the creatures brain.
Mrs. German tainted, and was carried
into her house suffering from a nervous
shock.
or the one hundred and ten steers in the
herd when it broke, forty-three were killed
or lost, and the remainder secured after a
night of hunting by the stock-yard men.
One ingenious fellow was determined to
catch his game alive, aud actually succeeded
in securing a steer with a rope and tying it
fast to the dock at Mason slip, In the south
fork. Libby, Mcneil 6 Libby lose about
one thousand dollars by the stampede.
Trichina.
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