Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1885-05-06
ANOTHER fire HORROR
A Factory Employing Several Hun
dred Hands
COIIapsss With a Tremendous GrasH'
Takes Fire
And Thirty Lives Believed to Be
Lost.
WORKING Girls Leaping From the
Windows.
The Soul Narrowing Scenes Of
the Awful Affair.

NV YoRI, May Shortly after 3
o'clock this morning there vas . crash at
No s. Atlantic avenue, Brooklyn, and Peo-
ME on looking up from the street saw that
tbe roof of the building had failed IN and
Aha, a portion Of the walls had fallen. They
rould hear screams from people injured,
and il seemed but g moment when vol
ume Of smoke rolled up, showing that the
buiI5ing had taken FIRE Hundreds Of peo-
ple-men, WOE en- and girls-were at work
a. the various branches of the business car
r;ed on in the building, which covers con-
siderable ground, having three wings and
which extended through from Atlantic
avenue TO State street. As
soor as the crash was heard
Of the falling roof hundreds Of those en-
ployed in the building fed or endea7ored to
make their way out by every avenue Of es-
cane which they were familiar with, and
some who were the last to reach the street
sppeared with terribly mangled faces aud
blood streaming from wounds which they
had received from falling timbers. The ex-
element in the neighboorhood became very
rrsa, and in q short time the wives otthe
len who were known to be working IN the
.riliirg and the parents OF the girls who
we explored there blocked the streets
and wrung their hands and wept. Three
ainfms of ire were sent out and
the services OF large number OF the
other forces had 10 be called into requiSition
10 keep the crowd Of people out Of the way OF
danger. Ii was reported at first that aoou
100 girls, who were employed in MilohyusS
button works which was on the top floor
where the roof tell in, were killed, but there
are other reports that most of these girls
made their escape BY climbing on roofs OF
the adjoining tenement houses. The build
ing was occupied by twenty small manu-
fsctures and there were about i've hundred
men and women employed therein. 1t was
Eve stories high and erected twenty years
AGO. The Weed works is burning rapidly.
When the hremen arrived they found
many OF the young women at the windows
screaming wildly for help. Their retreat
had been cut off and the Eremen quickly
put up the ladders, but the glrls were henl-
med in and many fell back into the building
and could not reach them. The inlamma-
torv character OF the building hindered the
efforts OF the fremen. lt was ascertained
that the engineer of the factory, Daniel J.
Lowery, was near the west wall ofthe mid,
de wing on Atlantic avenue. The cause OF
the fire was the oyerturning ofthe boilers of
3 soap factory on the second floor. The
west wall Of the middle wing on Atlantic
avenue had settled. Working men
were screwing it up with jacks,
the middle Jack had Seen screwed up too
high and it was When the whole weight OF
the wall came up on the two Jacks at the
end that il fell with a crash. Policeman
Mccormick OF the third ub.prccinct heard
that the building had fallen he ran there
and found that the boilers of the soap factory
had capsized aud that the building was on
fre from the furnaces beneath. The hre-
men were at once summoned.