Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1894-03-23
VERY FOURTH OF july.
EXCITING TINES IN The BUSINESS DISTRICT
LAST MIGHT.
Crossed Electric Wires Furnished Brilliant
Display and Threatened TO Start
Several Fires

Between half past nine and ten
o'clock last night several hundred peo-
pie were treated to what was by all odds
the finest impromptu electrical display
ever seen in Wheeling.
For fifteen minutes, Main, Twelfth
and Market streets were made brilliant
with dazzling flashes of red, blue, green
ana variegated light, sparks flew in
brilliant showers, and explosions, sput-
terings and sharp reports mingled with
the warning cries Of men and the fright
ened ordinations of women, while up
on the roof OF the Peoples Bank build
ing, where the telephone wires of the
CITY center, number OF red-hot cables
and single wires could be seen, threat
ening to set fire to the edifice.
The situation was decidedly danger
Gus as well as entertaining, and 1t is
strange thing that no one was hurt.
No one as.shocked, however-except a
dog, and that's another story, and might
shock the reader il here narrated.
About half past eight stray pedes-
TRANS on Twelfth street, at the corner
OF Main, became conscious OF some I'M
usual commotion in the central tele-
phone Office, on the second floor OF the
Peoples Bank building. Before they
could wonder what the matter was,
binding flashes of light shot from the
roof OF tue building, towards the Main
street side, they throwing into compare
tive obscurity the arc lights on the
street below. Flash succeeded flash with
great rapidity, and cries of "fire!"
were raised, while the girls on duty in
the central Office fled down stairs and
into the Hotel Windsor. Box "a was
pulled in a, moment, and when the
Chemical Company reached Twelfth
and Main, the wires on the roof OF the
bank building were seen to be red hot.
A number OF fremen ran to the roof, and
lowered a rope, with which the Chem
ical engine hose was raised TO
the top of the house, while
the remainder Of the Companies were
soon massed in the vicigitJ. Ut became
evident. Who ;Eis was going on,
that th5te was "cross" between the
telephone system and the wires Of the
Wheeling Electric Company, for wires
began to burn off all along Twelfth
street up to Market, creating panic
among the spectators who lined the
sidewalks. A moment later a wire
burned off at the northwest corner OF
Market and Twelfth, which, falling
across the street railroad wires,
the telephone system, and burned cut
the cabls-box on the big pole at Nc
Lain's corner, with perhaps the best
display of the evening.
While the street was thus dotted with
Kissing wires and flying sparks, Fireman
Donnally succeeded in getting one OF
the telephone girls back into the Office,
and word was sent to the Wheeling
Electric Company to shut down their
dynamos. The man at the other end OF
the telephone didn't want TO do it, but
was finally persuaded, and with the cut
ting of of the current the electric dis
play ceased, the red hot wires speedily
became black, and all fears of either a
fire or an accidental death were quickly
allayed.
While all this was going on, Manager
Wolff. of the Telephone Company,
Chief Healy Of the fire department, and
number of firemen investigated the
danger OF fire on the roof and found that
with the cutting of Of the current all
danger was past.
Firemen and street car men then re-
moved the wire which had fallen over
the trolley wire at Market and Twelfth
streets, aud the crowd on tle street
slowly dispersed. Manager Wolff at
once put force Of men at work, and by
eleven o'clock had ascertained that be-
yond slight damage to few telephones,
the system was as good as new, and that
subscribers would not be seriously dis
commoded. Several telephones were
burned out, and one or two others cut
out with Ratchet during the excite
ment, and a few incaudescent lights
we're also destroyed.
Before the alarm of fire, the police
reported that wire burned of on Six
teenth street, near Market, and this
may have originated the later and more
serious difficulty.