St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-07-27
a st. Louis Sewer Let's OF
It's Foul Poison With
Fatal Results.
Three Known to Be Dead,
and Others May Be in
the Debris.
The Sweeping Confagration
at Bay City Can Hardly
Be Estimated.
Scores Of Families Bereft O.
Everything They Owned
in the World.

ST. LOUIS, Mo-, July 26.-Furious at
restraint, held back by the high water
in the river and forced on by the flood
of sewage and water thrown upon
the recent Waters-Pierce oil fire,
the gas generated by the escap-
ing stock, heated by the intense sum-
mer sun, exploded about 5 o'clock this
afternoon, wrecking fully half of the
great Mill Creek sewer, the largest of
the city's drainage system and causing
a known loss of two lives, injuring
three others, with possibly other fatal
tiles to be revealed by the search of the
wreckage.
The first explosion occurred immedi-
ately under the wholesale liquor house
Of Carl E. Fuchs, 1014 South Fourth
street, which stood directly over the
sewer, and was followed an instant
later by an upheaval hundred feet
farther east across Third street,
the latter explosion completely
wrecking the Iron Mountain rail-
roads southern yards and
extending nearly a thousand feet to the
very edge of the river. AT Fuchs liquor
house the gas lifted up the basement
and first floors of the building, and. es-
Gaping, let the wreckage fall back to
the bottom of the Shiny stream. leaving
the second floors badly shaken but still
in position.
Search for the Dead.
Scarcely had the explosion occurred
than the police. fire and ambulance de-
rtr, &c fD no
and the work of rescue begun. The
first body to be taken from the wreck
age of Fuchs store, lying on the bottom
of the sewer, was that of Albert Mueller,
barkeeper, who was stone dead and
badly mangled by the explosion. Search
for Fuchs. who was known to be in the
store, was then pursued. but so far no
trace of his remains have been found.
1t is, however. considered certain that
the body is either in the wreckage at
that point. or has floated down and
lodged against the debris falling into
the sewer at the place Of the second up
heaval.
The wounded so far as known are ::
Mrs. Timpe, who was injured by flying
debris and died of her injuries; her
little son. who was with her, and
Charles Humpe, who was standing in
the front part of the wrecked building,
and was, with TIE front, blown far out
into Fourth street, which is at
that point very wide, because
of its junction with Broadway !;
Richard j. Tuenstall, injured by flying
debris. will recover; an unknown man.
both legs broken by being thrown
violently in the air and falling on the
pavement: Fireman GuheOn and Fire
man Finnegan, overcome by gas, will
recover.
The force of the explosion is shown
by the fact that manhole caps weighing
1900 pounds each were blown off the
entire length of the main sewer. which
reaches west to Tenth street and two
blocks further On tributory sewers. At
present practically one thousand feet of
sewer is an open stream, smelling
to heaven with its noisome
filth and gases. The yards of
the Iron Mountain road are so thor
Oughly torn up as to interrupt traffic in
that vicinity until the sewer can be re-
built. This, as the structure is large
enough to drive two four-horse teams
abreast in it, is work of no sma mag
nitude. The pecunlary loss cannot now
be estimated.