Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1884-09-01
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ROASTED HUMANITY.
A Circus Railroad sleeping Car Burned
with Horrible Results.

A Circus Railroad sleeping Car Burned
with Horrible Results.
lDenver News Greely special, 10Th.
The burning OF the circus car nine
miles north Of Greely was attended with
indiscribable horrors. The burned car
was next the engine. Seventeen cars,
containing Orton's Anglo.Americ cir
GUS, which left Fort Collins about mid.
night for Golden over the Greedy, Salt
Lake and Pacific road, burned. As the
train was nearing Windsor, small sta
tion near Greedy, 1t was running about
twenty-five miles an hour, when En-.
gineer Collpriest discovered car on fire.
He reversed the engine and threw open
the whistle valve. There we're sixty men
in the car, arranged in three tiers of
berths on either side forward. The side
door was closed and the men in the
hunks were sleeping against 1t. The
rear side door was also closed, and the
men who awoke discovered that the
lower unoccupied berths next to it, con.
tanning rubbish, were on fire, filling the
car with smoke and cutting off escape in
that direction. The only means of egress
was through small window be.
tween the car and engine. John Pine, of
Edgerton, Wis, and Elmer Millet, of
Iowa, crawled through the opening and
tried to pass in water from tho engine
tank. Owing to the suffocating gases it
was difficult to arouse the sleepers. Some
were kicked and bruised in q shocking
manner and pitched out Of the window.
The screams OF those unable to get out
through the blockaded aperature were
terrifying. The wild glare Of the flames
and the light of tue burning victims out
eide who were writing in agony Oh
cactus beds caused the wild beasts in the
adjoining cars to become frantic with
terror, making the scene appalling. The
performers, who occupied the rear cars,
gazed with white faces at the awful
spectacle. In the midst of the confusion
two or three heroic souls appeared equal
to the occasion and bravely cut their
way to their companions to tind them
already in the agony of death. Albert
Lake, in charge of the animals, and his
friend Kent walked over the cactuses in
their bare feet, pouring buckets OF oil on
the blistered unfortunates and wrapped
them in blankets.
An old Pacific coast sailor named Nc.
DOu a4OS AOAuoA4y VI EOIepduku6 suOW,
was terribly burned, his flesh hanging in
shreds. The heartrending cries of the
men on the prairie, the smothered appeals
of the dying within the car, the roar of
the flames and the bowling Of the
animals made the scene terrible beyond
description. The odor of the roasting
flesh and the distant cry of the coyotes
added to the general horror of the scene.
The voices of the dying grew fainter and
soon ceased. Meantime the engine had
gone to Greedy for assistance, returning
with DIR. jesse Hawes, president of the
state medical ASSOCIATION. Many of the
rescued, in being pulled through the
small windows, had limbs broken, joints
dislocated, and hands and feet burned off !.
Roasted trunks and bodies were found
in one place legs in another. and piles
of roasted and shriveled carcasses pulled
out of the ruins. At daylight hat-car
carried the charred bodies into Greedy
for interment. The county commission
ers buried the remains in huge coffin
seven feet wide and ten feet long, in the
Greedy cemetry. Rev. Mr.. Reed, of the
Presbyterian church, conducted the fun.
eral services. The coroner empannelled
jury, who were unable to learn the
cause of the fire or any important facts,
as the managers, with the remainder Of
the company, left Immediately for Gold
en- to fill an afternoon engagement.