The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-09-25


! iron was hurled high in the air and
struck the chimney on the hotel. scat
tering bricks in all directions. From the
hotel roof the iron leaped higher yet,
and landed on the roof of three-stOry
building fifty feet away. It tore along
the roof, ripping off shingles BY the
score, and fetching up at last against a
chimney, which itsknocked into smith.
Greens. Then its force was spent, and
it stopped and remained on the roof.
1.-The flight of this great iron bolt
was over before my friend had extracted
himself from the debris it left behind 1t
in the barn. He wasn't hurt much. but
his horse was, and had to be shot. The
IRON string, we soon found out, was a
section of the Oil City gravity railroad.
The purchaser of the road had begun
taking up the rails that morning. The
steepness of the hillside, and the fact
that it was covered with ice, had made
it impossible for the wOrkmen to take up
the rails by working on the slope, and
so they adopted the plan of removing
one line of rails in a body down the hill,
taking them apart as the line moved tG
tho bottom. Five or six of the bottom
rails had been taken up, rope fastened
to the lower rail of the line, which was
then one hundred feet from the bottom
of the hill. and horses hitched to the
rope to pull the string of rails down.
The ties were covered with ice, and the
whole slope was like glass. The horses
had started the string from its position.
when it Immediately began to slide
down on the ice by its own gravity. Its
velocity increased with every inch, and.
by the time it reached the bottom, it was
going like CREASED lightning. When it
struck the level at the bottom of the hill
the connections of the rails were broken
in many places, and rails flew about in
the air, some of them flying over three
hundred feet away. A section one hun
dred feet long held its grip. however,
and kept right on. My friends barn
was right in its way, and it went
through that as if it had been a paper
shell, and that was what spoiled our
sleigh ride that day. and came near
making necessary for me to be sent back
home by express.
THAT incident upset me. hadn't
nerve enough to ask man to give me
an order for groceries in that place, and
SO went on to Pittsburgh to recover.
There / met Charley Graves. Charley
is hlghwayman for Philadelphia shoe
house, and has great head for machin-
cry, and he induced me to go round
with him to see some ingenious contri-
vances that he said they had at the Dyer
lap-weld mill. The mill occupies two or
three buildings. We were in one Of
them, and man was explaining the
working of the machine to US. Ire
member boy that stood near. staring
at us with his mouth wide open, and
holding an immense pair of tOngs in his
hand. Not far away there were two
other workmea, both more intent on las
than they were on their work. Sudden
" all the machinery stopped. There
came sound AS of approaching thun-
der. Then something whizzed by my
ear so close that the wind it made
knocked my hat of. The man who was
talking to us dropped to the floor and
laid there, and the two men dropped in
quick succession, leaving only us and the
gaping boy standing there. The boys
mouth opened wider than ever, and his
eyes actually hung out on his cheek as
he gazed after the tOngs which had been
hurled from his hands clear across the
room. The room was full of flying bits
of iron, bricks and dust. With the eff
fects of the runaway railroad still upon
me, dashed out bareheaded into the
street. There found things also very
much disturbed. There was hole big
enough to run a ferryboat through in
the other building occupied by the mill.
Fifty feet away lay two dead horses. and
the remnants of truck and load of
coke were strewn over the sidewalk.
Just beyond the dead horses was piece
of iron that looked as if it weighed a
ton. The entire roof of the engine
house was gone, and an earthquake
couldn't have ratified things up more.
To aid to the excitement two men
dripping wet, came running in from the
Monongahela River. and said that some
thing had fallen from the sky into the
river alongside of boat they were fish
ing from, and had swamped it, COM
pelling them to swim for their lives.
Il didn't wait to hear what the trouble
was all about, but just dug for my hotel
and ordered by bill. Before I got away
Charley came in. He had stayed at the
mills to investigate. He found out that
the great belt that communicated the
power from the engine to the pulleys in
every part of the mill had broken in
two. There was big head of steam on,
and the whole power was operating on
the twenty-foot f1y-wheel, which, meet
ing with no resistance from the running
machinery, rapidly increased its revolu-
tons until it went so fast that it was
broken to pieces. These pieces, weigh
ing hundreds of pounds each, were sent
flying here and there about the neigh
bOrhOOd. One went straight up through
the roof. and never stopped until il
plunged into the MOnongahela River. an
eighth of mile away, and swamped
the two fishermen. Another piece went
through the brick wall of the mill, tore
across an alley, and then dashed through
the brick wall of another building. A
shower of bricks and demolished ma.
chinery preceded its course through the
interior of that building, and it was be.
fore individual portions of that shower
that our guide and the group Of curious
wOrkmen went down. They we're al
badly hurt. Another section of the fly.
wheel took forty feet of the wall of the
engine house with it, and entering the
street carried the truckman's team with
it for fifty feet, made splinters of the
wagon, and scared the teamster into 9
faint. The whole thing was over il
fifteen seconds, but it lasted me siA
weeks Y. San.
Sally Lunn: Soak tablespoonful