The Forrest City times., 1893-07-14
A SEETHING FURNACE.
A Scene of Unprecedented Horror
 at the Worlds Fair.
Over a Score of Lives Lost and Many Men Injured by the Burning of the Cold Storage Building Within
 the Grounds.
Brave Bremen. Caught in a Trap Far Above the Reach of Assistance, Compeled to Plunge to Death
 Through Seas of Flame.


 fire in this city since the dark days of October, 1871, as that which turned the Worlds fair grounds into scene of mourning this afternoon. The horror of the spectacle will forever remain as hideous nightmare in the minds of many men and women who gazed upon it. It was intensified by the dizzy height from which the victims were Seen to fail into vast furnace of blaz- ing timber and other infammable ma terial. Deeds of heroism were done by the fremen who perished and those who live to grieve over their lost con- rades. The Columb bian guards were not lacking in bravery and devotion to duty in the hour of danger and even in the face of death.
 There is mourning within the White City tonight, for the blackened rem nants of humanity full of life but yes terday are lying beneath the water soaked wreck or stretched out in the morgue outside the gates. The loss of property will probably amount to s65o,- GOO, but no one except those who have suffered financially is thinking of the money loss.
 The sun was shining its brightest from blue sky at 1:30 o'clock this af- ternoon, and the plea pee pie passed under the shadow of the cold storage warehouse. Suddenly boy, Wm. Sheppard, son of the guide book publisher saw a tongue of flame escaping from the cupola, or observa- tory, which is the topmost section of the warehouse. From the ground to that first flame there were 1s0 feet of space. The boy gave the alarm, and in few minutes the heroes of the fire stations at the Casino and the Terminal depot came dashing along with hose cart, engine and hook and ladder, many alas that never returned alive.
 The altitude of the blazing tower and its isolation from the roof made the work of the fremen hazardous and slow from the start. Before the men got to work several painters, electric light men and others employed in the building ascended by the elevators to the main roof and afterward clim bed up the spiral staircase which was built around the great death trap of a smokestack until they reached the bal cony underneath the burning cupola. They found the fire had gone too far to be smothered by the chemicals at hand They waited for the fremen to join them, thinking they could be of help.
 Capt Hardness of the guards or dered Sergt. Douglass to take eight men up to the blazing tower and aid the fremen. The sergeant gave his superior officer one look, such a one as the officers of the light brigade at Bala- klava may have given the commanding general when he gave the order to charge in the midst of roaring Russian cannon. But the sergeant went, and eight guards followed to do their duty. By a strange chance all are alive to- night and mourn the loss of brave com rades.
 Not so with the fremen. They went out on the roof and hauled up the hose with ropes to the first story of the tower on the south side of the ware house. Others rushed up the spiral stairway to the landing next the blaz- ing top and lowered ropes on three sides to the men below to attach the hose Until this time the fire res en- bled the flaming mouth of a small blast furnace. and at distance there seemed to be no danger. The exper.- enced eye of Chief Murphy, in con- mand of the Worlds fair fire depart ment, failed to suspect any danger to his men when he ordered them to go to the tower below the blaze. But. he sent nearly all of them 10 a death, the horror and agony of which no human tongue or pen can describe. Those few moments of realization that the flames surrounded them above and be- low followed by their last act in life must have been as an eternity of hell to every one.
 A sixteen-foot ladder was placed from the first section of the tower to the landing where the men were but no one thought of placing a b., ladder from the main roof to the tower so as to connect with the small one at the main roof The men were at wor.. on the east and south sides. All this time the flames were burning through the larger section of the tower The first iEt.nation of danger came to the victims when the smoke appeared un- der them, and as the wind blew it into their faces they retreated around the landing to the north side of the tower with the exception of one man. a painter, who slid down the hose, which had been brought up to the south side of the tower. It may be that more would have taken this apparently sure means of escape had it not been for the