The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1891-04-16
| CHICAGO ABLAZE.
The Big smythe Building and
Five Adjoining Ones Burn
Like Tinder.
The Walls Went Down With a Terrific
Roar, Landing in an immense
Heap Upon the Street


At the Museum Matinee y Mad Rush
Was Made for the Doors. Women and
Children Tumbling Down stairs In Com
fusion, Some Being Trampled Under
Foot, but All Got Out safefy-A Sight
Seldom Witnessed in the windy City
The Total Loss Between $1,000, 900
and $4,000, 900.
CHICAGO, April 13.-One of the nercest
and most disastrous fires the Chicago
department has fought in many years
swept through West Madison street yes
terday afternoon. The big Smythe
building that extends from Union half
way to Halstead street was destroyed,
and with it the contents Of John M.
Smythe & Co.'S furniture house, the
largest retail establishment in the world.
All that is left of Kohl and AIiddleton's
West Side dime museum is a heap of
bricks and Charred timbers. On the north
side of Madison street from Union street
to the Haymarket theatre block. five
buildings were destroyed. Three of them
tumbled down before the maelstrom Of
fire and at one time the roof and a por-
ton of the front of the theatre building
was burning so fiercely that everybody
thought it would share the fate of its
neighbors, but the hremen managed to
save the structure, but in a seriously
damaged condition. The total loss is
estimated at between 81 100000 and
s., 100000 John NJ Smythe g. Cos. will
lose nearly 100000,
Nobody Seriously Hurt.
An extraordinary feature of the con-
fagratiOn was the lack of fatalities
One man, Alexander Grant, had his leg
broken and his skull fractured by falling
from ne supporting lean of an electric
light H. front of the museum. A fire.
man was injured by q flying piece of
mortar, d 'd two or three spectators, who
got under he danger lines, were hurt,
but none OF them so seriously that they
were unable to go home unaided. The
fire originated in the wagon sheds of
John NJ. Smythe O. Co., directly in the
rear of the museum. Five hundred per-
sons were in the lower hall of the mu-
scum when the flames burst out in the
rear of the stage. Some one in the au-
dienCe saw the smoke creeping out
through the scenes, and the alarm was
given. A rush was made for the doors,
and those who sat nearest the stage were
panic stricken. Half of the audience
was composed of women and children,
and they occupied the seats in the front.
The flames caught hold of the light in
hammable scenery and soon made short
&c Ii a. l., 4.
the people were struggling to get out
and tongues of flame leaped from one
side of the narrow stage to the other
Many of the women tainted or We're
overcome by the smoke and had to be
carried out. William Alexander, the
doorkeeper, was standing at the en-
trance when those who were in the rear
came rushing out. The doors were torn
from their hinges by the crowd that
surged against them. The doorkeeper
sprang inside the entrance and kept the
people from tramping on each other in
their eagerness to escape. In less than
sixty seconds the hall was emptied, but
the audience got out none too soon, for
the flames had already taken hold of the
chairs in front.
Scene About smythe & Co.'S Building.
By this time Smythe g. Co. S big build
ing, clear down TO Union street. was
ablaze. The flames ran through the in
hammable stock like a whirlwind,
bursting through the roof and the front
windows and leaping clear across the
street until they touched the buildings
there. The northwest corner of Madi-
son and Union streets, occupied by
Alfred Peats as wall paper house, was
the next to catch fire. The three-story
structure next door, the lower floor
of which was occupied by Barr Bros. as
a hat store, was slowly crumbling under
the influence of the heat. The other
buildings, including the comparatively
new one of six stories, which was known
as La Barges Recess, clear to the east
line of the haymarket, were on fire.
Men and women were tumbling through
their open doors and running for their
lives. Some of them barely escaped.
Nearly / 200 persons were assembled
in the Haymarket theatre waiting for
the last act of the matinee performance,
but they were dismissed at once through
the alley way leading to Union street in
good order and without the slightest ev-
idence of a panic. All the streets ap-
preaching the fire were filed with peo-
pie, and so dense did the crowds get that
they became nearly unmanageable, and
it required third of the entire police
force to keep those who were nearest the
burning buildings from rushing head
long into places where their lives would
not have been worth a moments pur-
chase. Every engine that could be
placed within 800 feet of the fire was
called out and put to work. Pipemen
were distributed all oyeR the neighbor-
hood, in the alleys and streets, on house
tops and even in threatened buildings,
where they were held in readiness to
fight the fire the moment it reappeared.
Fresh relays of men were sent down the
fiery gauntlet in Madison street, where,
despite the heat and the wavering walls,
which rocked and tottered above their
heads, they poured water into the burn
ing buildings in torrents.
The Flames Finally subdued.
This was but the beginning of the dis
integration. The entire front of Smythes
town market tottered over into the
street landing in an immense heap upon
the very spot from which the firemen
had so recently retreated. After the
burned bindings had gone TO pieces,
the firemen concentrated their efforts to
the Haymarket theatre building which
was afire in half a dozen places and sue
ceeded in saving ~, but in badly dam
aged condition. With the Haymarket
safe there was little for the firemen TO
do bat direct their streams against the
blazing walls until the last vestige Of
fire had disappeared.
The losses were distributed as follows:
J. M. Smythe & Co., furniture, $500, 900;
Mrs. Laberge, $75, 900; A. III. Peats, wall
paper, 5000; Nicely Bros, $50, 900; Pat
terson block, owned by Ellis & Shepard,
s25, 600; James Casey, brick building,
bon n(n. Kohl az Middlatnn dina