The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-06
Fire Among the Broken Timbers Adds
to the Horror Of the Scene.
Three Blackened and Unrecognizable Bodies
Recoyered-Twenty-Eight Persons Still
misunderstanding tor the Dead.
A TERRIBLE CRASH.
An Unknown Number of People Crushed and
Burned to Death.

BROOKLYN, n Y, May 5.-Shortly after
o'clock this morning there was a crash at 81
Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn, and people on look
ing up from the street saw that the roof of the
building had fallen in and that a portion of the
walls had fallen. They could hear the screams
of people injured, and it seemed but moment
when volume of smoke rolled up. showing that
the building had taken fire. Hundreds of peo-
pie, men, women and girls, were at work in the
various branches of business carried on in the
building, which covers considerable ground,
having three wings, and which extend through
from Atlantic avenue to State street. AS soon
as the crash of the falling roof was heard
hundreds of those employed in the build
ing fed or endeavored to make their
way out by every avenue of escape with which
they were familiar, and some who were the last
to leave the street appeared with begrimed
faces and blood streaming from wounds which
they had received from falling timbers The
excitement in the neighborhood became very
grear and in short time the wives of the men
who were known to be working in the building,
and the parents Of the girls who were employed
there, blocked the streets and wrung their hands
and wept Three alarms of fire were sent out,
and the services of q large number Of the police
force had to be called into requisiton to keep
the crowd of people out Of the way of danger.
1t was reported at first that about
one hundred girls who were employed in
the Milo Hynes button works, which
was on the top floor, when the roof fell in, were
killed, but there are other reports, that most of
these girls made their escape by climbing on the
roofs Of the adjoining tenement-houses. The
building was occupied by twenty small manu-
factories, and there were about 500 men and
women employed therein. 1t was FIVE stories
high, and was erected twenty seven years ago.
The woodwork burned like tinder. When the
firemen arrived they found many of the young
women at the windows, screaming wildly for
help. Their retreat had been cut of, and the
fremen quickly ran up the ladders, but the girls
were hemmed in, and many fell back
into the flames before help could reach
them. The infiammable character of
the building hindered the efforts OF the firemen
1t was ascertained that the engineer of the fac
tory Daniel j. Lowry was one of the victims.
He was killed by the falling of the west wall of
the middle wing, on Atlantic avenue The
cause of the fire was the overturning of the boil
ers of a soap factory, or the second floor
The west wall Of the middle wing, on At
lantic avenue had settled, and workmen were
screwing it up with jacks The middle jack had
been screwed up too high, and it was lowered,
when the whole weight of the wall came upon
the two jacks at the end, andit fell with crash.
Policeman Mccormick, Of the Third sub-pre-
cinct heard that the building had fallen, and
ran thither Immediately, and found that the
boilers of the soap factory had capsized, and
that the building was on FIRE from the furnaces
beneath.
1t is now known that thirty lives were lost.