Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-29

to look in any Of the. second-story windows
of the remaining buildings beside you, it
was necessary to stoop; while here and
there, branching suddenly to the right or
left, you could continue to promenade upon
the housetops. Under this mountain of
spars, timbers, iron rods and beams, broken
furniture, pianos, stoves, freight cars, etc.,
there lay corpse upon corpse. Here pro-
truded from the ruin human arm, there
foot, and early on that Saturday morning it
required care to keep from crushing in the
blackened head of some body with. your
feet Walking, Jumping, climbing and
hopping over this uneven flooring, 10, IL
and Is feet above the buried pavement, it
was possible on that sorrowing morning to
see what Main street looked like.
ACRES OF DEBRIS.
Beginning at Adams street, where Main
street starts, the view may extend westward.
Feeder is the first cross street. Here and
there frame building is lying on its side or
twisted completely around. Under your
feet are sectional parts of houses, which
drifted up into the street from the back
water of last night. Railroad street, as seen
from the corner, is mere shadow on one
side and nothing ON the other. A hiatus of
many acres is literally stocked with debris
Henderson & Anderson's furniture store,
Covers livery stable and q score of pretty
homes and neat shops are in the ruin at
this point. This street was in the direct
path of the food, and on all sides of Main
street houses were literally hewn down. At
the corner of Main and Bedford streets stood
Swank's brick block, four stories high. 1t
was filled with agricultural implements and
hardware. A two-story brick was mortised
in the north end, where the streets form an
acute angle. A grocery occupied the ground
floor and the Herald was printed upstairs.
Both of these substantial brick buildings
were razed to the ground.
STORES ALL GUTTED.
The roof of the Swank block was splin-
tered all over the site of Daniel McLaugh-
Inns mansion. On the southwest corner Of
these two streets was a frame house which
its taller brick neighbors crushed into a
jelly, family under it all.
Louther & Green's block opposite had a
corner knocked out from pavement to cor
nice, the break enlarging the higher it got,
laying bare the exhibits of McMullin's bill
lard rooms and Burgraff's s photograph gal
lery on the top stories. The Hager block,
straight across Main street, was only fin
ished and occupied the previous March,
and the flood left one-third OF it in ruins,
This, falling, destroyed Gels & Schry's new
store. Farther along the Merchants Hotel
is reached. Part of the rear was thrown
down, taking with it the porch and two
guests. The entire building had to be torn
down, SO badly damaged was it. The next
building was also
DAMAGED BEYOND REDEMPTION,
and Luckhardt's frame close by was almost
completely demolished. The south side of
the street had the largest stores in Johns
town. The walls were left solid, but owing
to the height of the driftwood all plate
glass fronts were crushed in, and the water
and wreckage freely foated in through store
rooms and second-story apartments. Thus
every store establishment was wrecked. If
stocks we're not swept entirely out of exist
ence, they were too badly water-soaked to
be of any value afterward. There was no