Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1885-05-28
HORRIBLE HOLOCAUST.

| A Fire in a Cincinnati Printing Once Loses
Ten Lives.
An Associated Press dispatch from Gin
cinnati says:
This city has had its share of shocking
disasters, but never has one happened
where such pitiful loss of life has occurred
as that of to-day with 80 little occasion. In
| less than fl teen minutes after the fatal
blunder began no less than sixteen or sew
enteen persons persisted. Looking over the
scene after the event it is plain that every
| life could have been saved. Short as the
time was there were displays of thoughtful
heroism that saved two lives, but one of the
| heroes lost his own life. At half past one
o'clock in the afternoon dense clouds OF
smoke were seen issuing from the
| rear windows of the building
10 and 81 West Sixth street, being the print
ing house of SULLIVAN d Co. The alarm was
Immediately given which brought the
| engines almost instantly, and as the fire.
men could reach the building from the
| front and rear it was not fifteen minutes
until the fire was so much under control
that Chief Engineer Wisely was able to
reach the fifth floor. But he was too late to
rescue the girls employed there and to his
| horror he found ten dead bodies lying with
their hands to their faces and their faces
| blanched in death. The chief said. in
speaking of it, that the house was not burn
ed out. In fact the fire was chief
| ly in the fifth story. In the smoke counted
ten girls living on benches, tables and Othe
things, some on the floor. Their clothing
was not burned, but the skin on the back
of their hands was scorched. 1t was ter
rible sight, the worst I ever saw in my ex-
perience. The girls lay where they had
fallen in their wild and helpless despair.
It has now been fairly sscertained that the
fire started from can of bcnzine on the
second floor, near the elevator. A boy
on that floor says he heard the report, and
instantly the fire lept to the elevator
shaft and dsrted up it. The shaft
reaches to the top of the building, and
from the third story to the fifth was erected
wooden stairway which was the only
means of access to these floors. The eleva-
tor shaft, to add to its combustibility, was
encased within with lattice work. The
second floor, where the fire started, was the
press room, the third the composing room,
the forth storage and waste room, and
the fifth was the folding room.
| As we'll as can be ascertained there we're
about fifty occupants of the building, of
whom twenty or twenty-five were girls in
the fifth story. The boys were on the Sec
ond and third floors, and this accounts for
their escape. All agree that the spread of
| the flames was almost instantaneous. All
this while there was an avenue of escape
which the panicstricken girls did not think
| of. 1t was an opening in the roof which
they could easily have reached from q
bench standing beside the wall, and once
on the roof they could have reached
The lack of ready access to
the place lost all these lives. The fire
was almost insignificant. The wooden
stairway around the elevator shaft is not
burned SO as to be useless, or even unsafe,
| yet the flames seem to have pervaded all
the floors and to have ruined all the paper
and other light combustible matter Sulli-
van estimates his loss at 100000, with an
ample insurance. The loss to the building
is slight.
The scenes at Habig's undertaking
establishment, where the dead bodies were
takeni and where friends and relatives
came to identify them, were of tho most
painful character. Ia one case q police
man, of Covington, identified his sisters,
Lizzie and Dollie Handel, who were twins.
Mrs. Mier found the body of her daughter
and had to be led awsy from the terrible
sight. Mrs. Laban had the awful expert
ence of finding her three daughters among
the dead.
The fatal list as now made up is: Anna
Bell. aged 4S, wife OF David p. Bell; Dollie
and Lizzie Handel, twin sisters, age 20
years; Fanny Jones, % years; Della. Katie
and Mary Lahan, sisters, aged %. IA, and
Is, respectively; Katie Lowry, 20 years;
Lizzie Meir, 16; Annie Mcintyre, 20 years:
Fanny Norton, "a; Katiaand Mary Putnam,
sisters, % and 10 respectively; John Sulli-
van, % years; Lille Wynn, 20 years.
Already preparations are in progress for
the relief of the families of the victims,
most of whom were the support of DEEPEN
dent parents.