Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1893-06-09
AN APPALLING DISASTER.
Collapse Of a Government Building and
Great Loss Of Life.

WASHINGTON. June 9.-The most ap-
palling calamity ever known in Wash
ington occurred this morning at $50
o'clock. 1t was the collapse of the old
Ford Theatre building on Tenth street.
between E and F. The building was
used as the Record and Pension Di-
vision of the War Department and
about 45O people were employed there.
The first floor of the building collapsed
through weakness, caused by excavat-
ing q cellar in the basement for laying
electric light wires, and in its fall
carried down the other three floors
and with them hundreds of clerks.
Some of the clerks jumped from the
third floor, and scarcely half the peo-
pie in the building escaped with
out injury. Twenty-eight persons had
been taken out of the ruins up to 1913,
and the hospitals are crowded with the
dead and injured. The injuries are OF
the severest character. The excite
ment is intense and thousands surround
the scene. The number of ascertained
dead up TO the present time is eleven,
but others are being recovered every
few minutes, and the delay in securing
those buried under the ruins increases
the probabilities of fatal results. Two
troops of cavalry from Fort Myer and
two companies of infantry from the
Arsenal have formed line around the
scene of the disaster to keep back the
crowd.
Men who were in the building say
the crash came without warning.
Those on the top floor were suddenly
precipitated to the floor below and the
weight of falling timber and furniture
carried the second and first floors with
it. Fortunately only the forward half
of the floors gave way. The outer
edges of the floors and the rear part of
the structure remained intact. The
walls did not fall. The news quickly
spread all over Washington and hun
dreds of anxious relatives and friends
swarmed to the vicinity. As quickly
as possible the police and firemen form
ed rescue brigade, and assisted in
taking out the killed and wounded.
Ambulances, cabs, carriages, and We
hicles of every description were press
ed into service for taking away the
dead and injured. All the hospitals in
the city were utilized in caring for the
injured and scores of physicians volun-
teered their services. The Secretary
of the Navy has ordered out all the
naval medical officers stationed here,
and has also opened the Naval Hospital
to receive the injured.
The first body found was that Of a
colored man in the alley in the rear of
the building, where John Wilkes
Booth had his horse tether-
ed the night he killed President
Lincoln. This was Geo. NJ. Arnold, a
colored clerk from Virginia. He
had jumped from third story window
into the cobblestoned alley, striking on
his head, and was instantly killed.
Arnold vas well-known in Alexandria
where he had frequently made political
speeches. None of those who escaped
injury could tell which of the
floors first gave way. To the oc-
cupants of each floor there was
but one crash heard and instantly the
whole building was filled with blind
ing dust. There were many very mar
row escapes from death. 4 number
of clerks whose desks rested directly
upon the line where the floors broke
away saved themselves, while the desks
at which they sat were percipitated
down the awful chasm. Others who
were walking across the room heard
an ominous sound and stopped just at
the very threshold of death. When
the crash came those who survived
heard mighty scream of anguish from
their comrades as they sank out of
sight, and then grouped their way to
safety. When the FIRST rumbling
warning of the approaching collapse
came, the clerks on the third floor, to
the number of eighty or hundred, rush
ed to the windows and jumped for the
roof of a small building adjoining on the
northwest side. Many of them es-
capped in this way. No women were
employed i'll the building, but in a few
minutes after the crash came the wives,
mothers and daughters of the victims
began to arrive. 1t was was with
great difficulty that the policemen
keep the relatives of the injured out Of
the fallen building. Outside their
agonizing cries could be distinctly
heard by the poor unfortunates who
lay helpless.
Clerks who escaped were pressed into
service and went to work removing bun
dies of valuable documents, as the Pen
sion Office is dependent on these re-
cords and they cannot be replaced.
Every few minutes during the first