The semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1882-1886, 1885-05-23

HE FOUND TEN DEAD BODIES
with their hands to their faces and
their faces blackened and discolored
in death. The Chief said in speaking
of it: 1.-THE house is not burned out,
In fact the fire was chiefly in the
fifth story. I counted ten girls lying
on benches, tables and other things.
Some were on the floor. Their cloth
ing was not burned, but the skin on
the backs of their hands was
scorched. It was q terrible sight
the W )rst / ever saw in all my expe-
riece. The girls lay where they had
fallen in their wild and helpless des-
pair. 1t has now been fairly ascer-
tanned that the fire started from q can
of benzine on the second floor, near
the elevator shaft. A hoy on that
fol says he heard a shock, and in
stantly the fire leaped to the elevator
shaft and darted up it. The shaft
reaches to the top of the building,
and from the third story to the fifth
it was encircled by q wooden stair
way which was the only means of
access to those floors. The elevator
shaft, to add to its combustibility,
was encased with a thin wooden lat
tiee work.
THE BUILDING AND ITS USES.
The second floor, where the fire
started was the press room; the third
was the composing r DOM, the fourth
was the storage and waste room and
the fifth was the folding room. AS
soon as the fire started John Sulll-
van, a young man and cousin of the
proprietor, ran up the stairway to
the fifth floor to give warning to the
girls. Instantly almost he found
that he vas too late to get them
down the stairway and that his own
retreat was cut off. What he did for
the frightened girls could only be
told by the glimpses that could be
seen Of him through the smoking
windows, whence the girls had
already leaped to death. J. R. Kins-
ley's son and his foreman had gone
to their roof adjoining this one on
the west, knowing that the girls were
imprisoned on the floor below, they
procured a rope and lowered 1t to the
window where Sullivan was. He
instantly grasped it, and fastening
one of the girls to it he helped her
out OF the window and Kinsley and
Shady lowered her safely to the
sidewalk. The rope was brought up,
and Sullivan quickly fastened it to
another girl and sent her down
safely. The rope came up a third
time, and by this time the other
GIRLS WERE ALL sUFFOCATED
or were afraid to venture. Sullivan
fastened the rope to his own body
and was being lowered, when, as he
was half way down, the flames shot
out of the window, and he fell head
foremost to the sidewalk in the pres
ence OF the Mortified crowd Of
people, who had witnessed his hero
ism. When the girls were jumping
from the window a large colored man
herolcally tried to catch them, and
break the force of their fall. He
nearly lost his own life in the at
tempt. Within ten minutes after the
tire began the patrol wagons were
called into use to carry away the
wounded and dead. AS we'll as can
be ascertained there were about fifty
occupants of the building, of whom
twenty or twenty-five were girls, on
the fifth story. The boys were on
the second and third floors and this
accounts for their escape. All agree
that the spread of the flames was
almost instantaneous. Mr.. kins-
Icy, who ran to his upper floors in
the rear, where the flames ere in
danger Of coming through his win
dow, found the smoke SO dense that
HE HAD TO CRAWL ON THE FLOOR
to reach his window and close it. AL
this while there was an avenue of es-
cape, which the panic stricken people
did not think of. There "a an
opening in the roof, which they could
have easily reached from a bench
standing beside the wall, and once
on the roof they could have reached
the other buildings with perfect ease.
The lack of ready access to this
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 unsafe. Yet the flames seem to
have pervaded all the floors and to
have ruined all the paper and other
light combustibles. Mr.. Sullivan es-
mates his loss at Sc, 900 or $40, 600, with
ample insurance. The loss to the
building is slight.
AT THE UNDERTAKES.
The scenes at Habig's undertaking
establishment, where the bodies were
taken and where the friends and rel
atives came to identify them were of
the most painful character.
In one case a policeman of Coving-
ton, Kentucky, identified his sisters,
Lizzie and Dollie Handel, who We're
twins. Mrs. Meier found the body
of her daughter, and had to be led
away from the terrible sight. Mrs.
Leaban had the awful experience of
finding her three daughters among
the dead.
THE FATAL LIST
as now made up, is: Annie Bell,
aged 40 years, the wife of P. Bell,
No. % Lock street Dollie and Lizzie
Handel, twin sisters, aged 20 years,
No. 7l3 Scott street, Covington; Fan
ME Jones, aged % pears, corner Lib
erty and Freeman streets; Della, Kate
and May Leaban, sisters, aged q,
IA and 16 years respectively, No. 205
Sixth street; Katie Lowry, aged 20
years, Newport, KY; Lizzie Meier,
aged Is years, No. 345 Broadway
Annie Mcintyre, aged 20 years. No.
so East Sixth street; Fannie Norton,
aged "a years ; Kate and Mary Put
nam, sisters, aged % and 10 years
respectively; John Sullivan, aged %
uaara M 3Q6 Rr0adwau Lille