Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-03-29

were bslrg held within It TIE loss OF life
at this place far exceeds tina at any other
one locality. The ground a " OF the build
ing was give. over TO markes men, there be-
ing thirty butchers and tweI ty-fiys garden
ers' stalls. There was no one in this part OF
the builiing 50 far as Is known. On the
second floor front were THREE small rooms.
two of them for the toilet and one an Office
Next back of this was a large ballroom.
then the kitchen and then a small hall where
Miss App taught dancing classes On the
third floor were thrse large lodge rooms
Only a Few Left Alive.
Miss App was teaching dancing class OF
young children and there were IN the room
mothers, fathers and other attendants of the
youngsters, aggregating sixty or more peo-
pie Probably a dozen of the Sc escaped and
all the others are in the ruins, with the ex-
ception of several taken out oead. In oneof
the rooms ON the second floor the executive
body of the Roman knights was in session,
there being seven in attendance All or
these but one escaped death, the unfortunate
man being Theodore Enge meier, an up
holsterer, at Third and Chestnut streets.
On the third door Jewel Lodge No. =
knights and Ladies of Homo, was holding
a meeting. This was one Of the largest
lodges of the order, and there were over l5o
members present when the building fell. A
mere handful Of these e,cared On the same
floor Humboldt lodge, No. IA, l. o. o. F.,
had gathered, their being eighteen members
in the room Bat few of these are alive,
and the few who escaped are badly hurt
In the Grip of the Fire Fiend.
At this point hundreds Of people collected,
frantic with grief and anxiety. appealing to
the men engaged in clearing away the ruins
10 ascertain whether their love1 ones were
safe. From the midst OF the heap could BE-
heard the heart-rending cries OF the living
for sUccOr. About noon the upper portion
Of the debris had been cleared away, when
the opening up of a Gaze in the debris caused
a current OF air 10 penetrate the ruins.
whereupon the smoldering ire broke out
with tremendous ferceness 1t spread rap
idly and forced the workers to desert the
pile. As soon AS the fire gained Roadway,
the groans OF the imprisoned people became
shrieks, and so great was the horror of the
moment that the watchers were frantic and
screamed and ran about like wild, the terri
bic sufferings which they were unable
10 alleviate driving them 10 despair.
Several lines of hose were soon throwing
water on the flames, but il was more than
an hour before the work coulG be proceeded
with, and then il was carried on with much
more difficulty than before, on account of
the heat.
Thirty-Five Dead TAX en- Out.
Up to II O'Clock only about thirty-five
dead bodies and twenty-five wounded and
dying were taken from the wreck. The
corpses were laid in various houses across
the street AMI in Dougherty S, keenan's I'M
dertaking establishment IN the block below.
At the latter place the people pas sed in and
out, one by one, to look al tn bodies, hunt
ing for friends and relatives One man said
he was looking for Louis Lipp, ami the very
first sheet lifted revealed the corpse Of the
of the person wanted The man covered bis
face, groaned, and would have fallen had he
not been sustained.
Mourning for Their Children,
At about 80 O'Clock the room where the
chiliren were dancing was reached Mr.
Lou Simms, Jr. OF ll24 Market street
hai for hours been moving about in ar
agony of grief in front of Il at portion OF
the wreck where this room hal been, for hi
wife and four little children vera there.
When the room was reached Mrs. Simms
was the first one found, anu she was fatally
hurt Then. within about fifteen minutes OF
| each other, three OF the ssimms children were
recovered They were unconscious. and
there is only FAINT possibility that they vii
live While the father was impioring the
workers TO get his other child fire broke out
and work was suspended. The last man
| taken out alive before the fans started va:
John Hepden, of 2l02 West Broadway, and
just previous 20 that woman, who was un-
able to give her name, was recovered.
Two Hundred Vet TO Recover.
There were 20 or more psopie still in the
| debris, and the probabilities ere that few,
if any more, would be recovered alive o.
those taken out dead only small number
were identified Everything was chaos
There was no system, and unisr the cir
cumstances none could be expected. The
loss of property on Market street between
Tenth and Eleventh. was crater on tbs
whole than that between f .sventh and
Twelfth, where Falls City hall IS: but in
comparison to the life lost at the latter place
il sinks into insIgnihcance.