Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1884-09-11
HORRIBLE HOLOCAUST.

A Circus Car Containing Sixty Men Burns
and the Men, Having No Mode OF Exit,
Are Literally Roasted Alive.
The news from Greeley, Col, of he burning
of a circus car, nine miles north of that place
was attended with indesCribable horrors.
The burned car was next to the engine, in a
train Of seventeen cars, containing OrtOn's
AnglO-American Circus, which left Fort
Collins about midnight for Golden, over
the Greeley, Salt Lake & Pacific road. The
train was nearing Windsor, a small station
near Greeley, running about twenty-five
miles an hour, when the engineer discOv-
cred the car on fire, 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. The
forward side door was closed, and the men
in the hunks sleeping against it. The rear
door was also closed, and the men who
aWOke discovered the unOCCupied berths
next to it containing rubbish on fire, filing
the car with smoke and cutting of escape
In that direction. The only means of egress
was through a small window between the
car and engine. John Pine, of EdgartOWn,
Wisconsin, and Elmer Millet, Of Iowa,
crawled through the opening and tried to
pass in water from the engine tank. Owing
to the suhOcating gases it was difficult to
arouse the sleepers. Some were kicked and
bruised in a shocking manner, and pitched
out of the window. The screams Of
through the bIOckaded aperture were
terrifying. The Weired glare of the
flames and the light of the burning car
showed the victims outside who Writhed in
agony on cactus beds and caused the wild
beasts in the adjoining car to become fran
tic with terror, making the scene appalling.
The performers who occupied the rear car
gaZed with white faces at the awful spccta-
Gle. In the midst Of the confusion two or
three heroic souls appeared equal to the
occasion, and FraVely cut away to their
companions, to ind them already IN the
agony of death. Albert Lake in charge of
the animals, and his friend Kent, walked
over the cactus in bare feet, pouring buck
cts of oil on the blistered unfOrtunates and
wrapped them in blankets.
An old Pacific coast sailor named Nc
Donald, formerly of FOrepaugh's show, was
terribly burned, the flesh hangingin shreds.
The heart-rending cries of the men on the
prairie, the smOOthered appeals of the dy-
ing within the car, the roar of the flames
and the bowling Of animals made the scene
terrible beyond description. The OdOr Of
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 having gone to Greedy for
assistance, returned with Doctor Jesse
Halves, President of the State Medical
Association. Many of the rescued, on be
ing pulled through the small windows, had
limbs broken, joints dislocated, hands and
feet burned OFF, roasted trunks, a body
found IN one place and his legs in another,
and piles of roasted and shTiVeled car
casses were pulled out of the ruins. AT day
light fat car carried the chsrred bodies
into Greeley cemetery for interment. The
County Commissioners buried the remains
IN huge coffin seven feet wide and ten
feet long, in the Greeley cemetery. Rev.
Mr.. Reed, of the Presbyterian church, con-
IuCted the funeral services