Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1893-07-11
FIRE AND LOSS OF LIFE

ed by the Hercules Iron Company, Of
Chicago, used as cold storage ware
house and ice-skating rink, and situa-
ted near the Sixty-fourth street entrance
to the Exposition grounds, burned to
the ground in a little over an hour yes
terday afternoon, sending to death, as
far as is known, at least eighteen men,
and injuring nineteen others. The full
extent of the death wrought may new.
er be known, as the building collapsed
totally in 50 short time after the nre
started that many people who enieTeu
the building, hoping to render aid De-
fore the peril under which they We're
placing themselves was realized, were
caught like rats in a trap and went un
announced to their doom. 1t IS SAID
that but four Columbian guards are
missing. The horror of the spectacle
will forever remain as hideous night
mare in the minds of many thousands
of men and women who gazed upon it.
1t was intensified by the dizzy height
from which the victims were seen to
fall into a vast furnace of blazing timber
and other inhammable material. Deeds
of heroism were done by the firemen
who persisted and those who live to
grieve over their lost comrades.
1t was about 1:30 o'clock p. m. when
a small fire broke out in the tower.
Twenty-Five fremen went to work to
extinguish it. While they were thus en-
| oared flames suddenly broke out
twenty-five feet below them and
they were forced to jump one hundred
feet to the main roof of the build
ing. The thrilling spectacle brought
thousands of sight-seers to the neighbor-
hood, and the excitement became H.
tense. Brave tiremen ran up ladders
To the rescue of their comrades.
The fire spread with great rapidity,
bursting out all over the tower. Five
minutes later the blazing tower fell
with a terrific crash, carrying down
with it the roof. Fifty firemen were
on the building at the time, and one
ladder was their only means of escape.
A number of them fell one hundred feet
to the ground, and several were carried
down with the roof into the interior of
the building, which was literally fiery
| furnace.
The loss of so many men almost par
alyzed the fire department. The Col
umbian guards endeavored to keep the
crowds back, but thirty-hve thousand
people pressed forward as close as the
heat would permit.
The men on the tower only prolong-
ed their consciousness of life, for all
were doomed to die, yet they struggled
to catch anything which seemed to hold
out chance to leap and live. One by
one they dropped from the tower. some
clinging to the burning rope as far rs it
afforded them any hold and then shoot
ing through solid sheet of flame to
the roof.
The sight was too much for even the
militarymen and the fremen on the
ground to bear without q shudder and
turning away Of faces. Human forms
| leaping through flames hundred feet
or more down, down to sure death, pre-.
scented sight the stoniest heart could
not witness unmoyed.
One last man on the tower waited
without apparent fear until there was
only himself left. He was fireman
and he grnsped the remnant of burning
rope Just as the whole tower structure
parted diagonally and fell towards the
north, right over the PROSTATE bodies of
the poor fellows who had leaped to es-
cape the pitiless flames.
The last man who went down to
death with the tower kept feet down as
| !, n
of flames and air was so great that his
body was turned round and round in
the passage within sight of all and the
blazing tower fell over his form, making
a funeral pyre and ending his agony, ifbe
was not dead before striking the roof. One
victim remained on the tower until the flames
from below had burned his legs so that tho
| flesh peeled from the bone.
When the tower topped over there was no
hope of saving any who had not been taken
Off the roof. The bodies on striking had be-
come imbedded nearly three feet in the
gravel and the tar between the wooden ioists
| and ONLY few could be removed to place OF
safety before the great central tower crashed
over
At3:15 D. m. the fire was under control.
The loss of property will probably amount to
over S650,0OO The cold storage warehouse
was - Oby 255 feet. 1t cost S23O,OoO, and
was built Of wood and aft. and was stored
with meats vegetables uits and wines be-
longing to the restaurants on the grounds. 1t
had a massive tower of go feet high. The
establishment was QUILTED with complete ap
paratus for the manufacture of ice, refrigerat-
ing Sc, and was on the grounds as an eI-
hibit. An artificial ice rink in the top story
had Just been completed, and the place was
usually throngcd with sight-secrS.