The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1890-03-20
.DEATHIN THE RUINS
Fire in a Wholesale House
Brings Death to the Brave
Fighters of the Flames.
Ten Firemen Taken Out Dead
and Thirteen Receive
Serious Injuries.

seemed an insignificant hre in Bowen,
Merrill Il Cos. book store to-day resulted
i'll catastrophe in which at least ten men
were killed and dozen wounded, some of
whom will die. The building occupied by
the book company was 1our-story and base
ment, marble front building, facing Wash
ington street just west of Meridian. The
fire started shortly before 3 o'clock near the
furnace in the subbasement. The fire
department, when it arrived, seemed at
a loss to locate the fire, and began pouring
water into the building at the front when
the seat of the trouble was in the rear. For
two hours the fight had continued in this
way until majority OF the spectators had
lett under the impression that the fire was
out. About 5:30 however, there was ter
rible crash and the entire building, except
the front wall fell inward. At the time
number OF firemen valiously estimated at
eight to twenty; were on the roof OF the
building, and We're buried in the debris,
which was piled forty feet high within
the walls of the burned building.
hmm ately the work of rescuing the liV-
ing and extricating the dead was begun by
at least five hundred volunteers, who, in
addition to the uninjured fremen and men,
U
workers. At times their ears would be
greeted by the groans of the wounded un-
derneath the ruins and then the work
would be pushed with renewed vigor. At
II o'clock ten fremen were known to be
dead Their names are:
George Faulkner. Ulysses Glazier, George
Glenn, Al Huffman, Espy Stormer, Richard
Lowrie, Charles Jenkins Andrew Cherry, super
intendent OF fire alarm system; Thomas 3 Burk-
A
Wounded-Anthony Voltz, pipeman; Lew RAT
ert. fireman; Thomas Barrett, fireman; A. I.
Mercer captain fire depSrthmfent; Samuel W.
slightly William Parte, pipeman, internally,
may die Henry Woodruff, rpeman, badly
hurt; Ebenezer Leech' pipemap4; 4r-it cut M and
fatally crushed; William Long slightly hurt;
William Heinsey, pipeman, badly hurt; john
Burkhart' Pipeman, badly hurt about head'
PATHETIC SCENES.
At that hour the workmen digging the
mass of brick, iron and mortar were trying
to extricate man whose face, bloody and
bruised, appears just above the debris. He
is supposed to be Daniel JONES' pipeman.
His teet are caught by huge iron girder,
and he is being literally piled with stim-
ulants to keep him alive, Underneath him
is another man who is supposed to be dead. |
The scenes at the fire headquarters
pathetic interest by those at the homes |
of the dead firemen. Old men, fathers of
the younger men who lost their lives; wives, |
mothers and children of the dead and liv- |
ing have crowded into the room, seeking |
information of their loved ones, and, get |
ting none, have rushed to the scene of the
fire and by their frantic appeals have made
doubly arduous the work of those endeav-
oring to get at those imprisoned beneath
the ruins. The first amDulances to leave
the scene of the fire carried the re-
mains of the first four men taken from
beneath the fallen floors. They were fol-
lowed by an impromptu procession of CAL
riages, wagons and pedestrians, and pro-
ceeded first to the undertaking establish
ments, and then to the homes of the de-
ceased, where. in two instances, their COM
ing gave the first intimation of the sorrow
that had fallen on the home. The cause of
the loss of life is as yet not quite apparent.
During the two hours and half which the
fire was burning there had been
SCARCELY FLAME VISIBLE
to the spectators in the streets and alleys,
though the volume of smoke had been so
dense as to utterly obstruct the vision.
About 5 o'clock the first entrance to the
building was made by the fireme Ell, who
had previously been held back by the dense
smoke issuing from within. Then ladders
were raised from the front and rear
of the building and the building lit
orally swarmed with firemen. The crowds
in the street began to disperse
and everybody considered the fire practi-
cally extinguished when there was sud-
den crash and the whole building except
the Washington street front fell in with a
crash. Firemen were on each of the three
floors and the roof and they were of course,
carried down with the collapse. 1t would
seem that the building had been INSULT
ciently tied to those on either side of it
and that the flames ate hole in the CEN
ter letting the whole cave in. A
fund has already been started for the relic
of the injured firemen and the families
those who are dead which has already
reached the total OF $1,000 Mayor Sulli-
van has issued proclamation calling for
subscriptions. The coroner has been in
vestigating and will hold an inquest to-
morrow. Bowen Merrill & Co. carried
stock valued at $125, 900, on which
there was an insurance of $4,000.
The building was owned by Silas T. Bowen,
and the loss on that will be $4,000. II. p.
Wasson, dry goods, suffered loss of $10,-
600 by smoke and water, and Byran & Sui
livan, dry goods, half that amount. Several
smaller stocks are badly. damaged. Bowen,
Merrill & Co. have secured a new location,
and will reopen for business in few days.
Col. Sam Merrill, of the firm, is the newly
appointed consul general at Calcutta, and
was to have left for his post to- morrow