Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-07-07
CONVICYS KILLED.
A Destructive Cyclone Sweeps
Over Baton Rouge.
The Walls of the Penitentiary
Blown Down.

Ten of the Inmates Killed and Thirty
wOunded-The Governors Mansion
and Other Houses Demolished - A
Steamer Sunk on the Mississippi-Full
Particulars Not obtainable.
NEW ORLEANS, July IA cyclone at
Baton Rouge Monday morning destroyed
several houses. Many people were hurt.
The penitentiary walls were blown
down and many convicts are reported
killed.
The governors mansion and other
houses were demolished.
The steamboat Smoky City was blown
to pieces, there being nothing left of her
but the hull. Several of the crew were
badly injured.
Taking Out the Dead.
Eight dead and twenty four wounded
have been taken from the ruins at the
penitentiary. Two squares on the east
side of Baton Rouge were destroyed.
The fatalities are variously estimated at
from thirty to forty.
The cyclone passed over the lower
portion of the town unroofing houses.
tearing up immense trees and carrying
missels along the air for many blocks.
The governors mansion was directly in
the path of the hurricane, which made
clean sweep of every chimney and
cleared the front lawn of its large trees.
The roof of handsome residence, be-
longing to Mr.. Marsh, was carried away
and other damage done to the place.
The boulevard is one mass of trees that
have been torn up by the wind, and the
street is filed with pieces of house tops
and other timbers of almost every de-
scription.
The penitentiary walls were blown
and ten persons killed and thirty wound
ed. The factory building was demolish-
ed and the hospital of the penitentiary.
The loss is very great.
The rain has fell in torrents making it
impossible to learn the extent of the
damage.
Household goods that have not been
carried away by the wind have been
ruined by water. Streets and cellars
are flooded and it is feared that some
persons have been drowned in the lower
part of the city.
At the penitentiary the scene was a
terrible one. Without any warning
whatever the walls of Wells factory, in
which 100 convicts were at work, were
crushed in as if they had been mere
pasteboard.
The guards were helpless, and as most
men at work were either killed or
wounded, little could be done toward
extricating the unfortunate victims until
help arrived from the main prison build
ing. To add to the horror of the stu
alton the ruins caught fire from the
furnace in the engine room, but owing
to the heavy rain which was falling the
threatened holocaust was averted.
The rescuers went quickly to work
and began the task of extricating the
dead and dying from beneath the ruins.
OF the fource at work when the storm
struck the building il was discovered
that ten had been killed and thirty SER
iously injured, and all others more or
less bruised. This was not the worst.
The hospital Of the penitentiary in
which were lying number Of manned
and helpless convicts, was also leveled
to the ground by the fury of the storm.
The work Of rescue at the factory
building where the larger number of
lives were in danger, diverted attention
from the unfortunates in the hospital,
and it was not until most of the work
ing force had been rescued that the
prison officials found time to turn their
attention to the hospital. Here the work
was even more difficult than at the
factory, owing to weakness of inmates,
who were unable even to give the res
cuers an Indication of their presence in
the debris by shouts. The work there
fore proceeds slowly.
4 MadiaOn. MiRa.