Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1894-07-14
BUnkIMG CuICAGO'S YARDS
Millions of Dollars Worth Of Prop
erty in Ashes.
Hundreds OF Cars Firemen
stoned by h Sons Of satan-Hordes
of Firebugs ut work-The
Police Powerless.

CHICAGO, July 6.-With flaming torch
lawless hordes of firebugs are at work
at a score Of points in the southern part
of the city tonight. Fires are raging
In every direction among the numerous
railroad yards and hundreds Of cars and
tens Of thousands of dollars worth Of
merchandise have already gone up in
smoke OF has been carried away
by rioters. Incendiarism was ram
pant all day and tonight the glare
reflected from the heavens showed hat
the dastardly pastime continued una.
Fifty-fifth to Sixty-third streets are n
mass of fire. Ten tracks. containing
between 1000 and 1000 cars, half Of
them loaded. will be n total loss. No
water being at hand, the fire must burn
Itself out.
The Pan Handle depot at Sixty-third
street is also destroyed. The Grand
Trunk yards at Elston are a sea OF
sames. Five hundred box cars are
supposed to have been burned. All ef-
forts TO check the flames are futile.
Flag shantios and other railroad prop
erty of n like nature are also burning,
and no water, except a stream from o
plug at Fifty-irst street, can be OBJ
tanned.
While directing the movement OF the
company at this point Fire Marshal
Fitzpatrick was seized by n mot and
roughly handled before being rescued.
At Hyde park, near the worlds fair
ground, the ashes of forty ears are now
s~mouldering and word has just come in
that the mob has succeeded In firing the
Illinois Central shops at burnside. At
the stock yards about fifty toughs. few of
whom are railroad men, are sncakiug
from point TO point and setting a large
number Of fires. Loading hand ears
with waste and oil, they would pass up
and down tho tracks and lighting wads
of the inflammable stuff throw 1T into
open cars as they passed. Fires sprung
up On every hand, and no efforts on
the part of the police seemed to be I'M
derway to intercept the frebugs.
Troops are being hurried south, com
pany after company, in heavy march
ing order TO the turbulent district from
tho center of the city.
The aggregate losses TO the railroads
will be enormous. Miles Of tracks are
ruined by the fierce heat, and hundreds
of switch and signal towers, with the
expensive mechanism, utterly de-
stroyed. Valuable locomotives,
wrecked and disabled, and endless
tangled wires and Frustrated poles lit
ter the ground. Only one residence
h.a A ~ 49,. g..
and that In the stock yards
district, but the wanton destruction
Of railway property continues I'M
checked. II appears that nothing short
of an armed demonstration against the
mob and the sacrifice Of many lives al
deter them. To illustrate the tactics
resorted to by tho incendiaries, besides
interfering with the fire alarm system,
empty cartridges were forced into the
key holes of fire alarm boxes, fremen
knocked down with stones and bricks,
and while wording at the fires the
horses of the department were stolen.
AT midnight all the ears in the yards
were destroyed. The mob showed
much method IN its lncendiarism and
hundreds of cars were rified and their
contents carried away before the torch
was applied. The loss in the Pan
Handle yards alone is estimated at
81, ESQ. ZOO.
The First regiment Of state troops.
$50 strong, went to Hyde Park and
Kensington this evening. The Sec
ond, with about the same number
of men. followed shortly after, be-
ing assigned to the stock yards
district. The Third regiment, 600 men.
will be placed on duty in the district
north of Tbirty-ninth street. The
Seventh regiment, roo men. is he'd in
reserve, together with Battery ID, at
Michigan avenue armory