Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1894-07-12
APPLIED THE TORCH
INCENDIARIsM IS RAMPAN IN THE
CHICAGO YARES.
Thousands of Cars Are Burned and
nm Enormous mount OF Merchan-
disc 10 Destroyed or Stolen - A
Night of Terror.

last night at q score Of point, in the
south half of Chicago. Fires were rug
ing in every direction among the numer-
GUS railroad yards. thousands of cars and
tens of thousands Of dorrars worth Of
Merchandise went up in smoke or were
carried off by the now frenzied mobs of
rioters. 1nceaiiiar;sm was rampant,
alarm after alarm followed in quick sue
cession all nigh. and from early morn
ing until midnight reports of fresh fires
followed each other with startling rapid
ity, being confined, however, principally
to railroad rolling stock and buildings.
against which, thus far, the greater part
OF the mob's fury has been directed.
Early in the morning blaze started
among some overturned cars at Kensing-
ton, quickly communicating to other
tracks filled with long lines of cars,
many containing valuable merchandise
were soon blazing tGriously. Famed by
strong winds there were at this point q
total of eighty cars wiped out. At the
stock yards one blaze after another was
reported, and from the outlying districts
came urgent calls for engines and police
protection, increasing in frequency.
But with the falling shades of night
came the climax of the fiery festival.
The Pan Handle yards from Fifty-6fth
to Sixty-third streets, eight blocks, were
a mass of fire. Ten tracks, containing
from a thousand to two thousand cars,
half of them loaded, is total loss. No
water being at hand the fire burned itself
out. The Pan Handle station at Sixty
third street was also fred and destroyed.
The Grand Trunk yards at Elston was
a sea of danes. Five hundred box cars
are supposed to have. been burned. All
efforts to check the flames were futile.
The flag shanties and other railroad prop
erty also burned, and no water except
one stream from plug at Fifty-frst
street could be obtained. While directing
the movements of tie Eleventh battalion
at this point Fire Marshal Fitzpatrick
was seized by thoroughly frenzied mob
of firebugs and thrown into pond, from
which he was rescued more dead than
alive.
At Hyde Park, near the worlds fair
grounds, the ashes of forty cars are now
smouldering, and after numerous efforts
the mob has succeeded in firing the Illi-
nois Central shops at Burnside.
At the stock yards about fifty toughs,
few of whom We're railroad men, skulked
from point to point and set large num-
Ter of fires. Their method was thor
oughly unique. Loading several hand
cars with buckets Of waste" and Gil,
they would glide around among the cars
in the darkness, lighting wads of the in
| fammable stuff, which would be thrown
into the open doors of the cars as they
passed by them. Fires sprung up on
every hand and no organized effort on the
part of the police seemed to be under way
to intercept them. The aggregate of the
losses to the railroads will be enormous.
M. IS of their tracks have been ruined by
the fierce heat hundreds of switch and
signal towers with their expensive
nechc nism utterly ruined. Thousands
of cars and untold quantities of merchan-
disc of every imaginable description have
fed the flames and gorged the larders Of
and disabled; miles of tangled wires and
PROSTATE poles litter the ground.
Only One residence has been burned
cendiaries work, and that one was in
the stock yards district and business
buildings have escaped altogether. But
the wanton destruction of railway prop
erty continues unchecked, and with in
creasing destructiveness. The maddencd
mobs, worked up to the highest pitch Of
fury, paralleled the scenes of the COM
mune, and it appears as though nothing
short of miracle can prevent an armed
demonstration against them and the sac
rifce of many lives.
To illustrate the tactics resorted to by
the incendiarics to hamper the work Of
the fire department empty cartridges
were forced into the key holes of the fire
alarm boxes, tiremen were knocked down
with stones and bricks, and while work
ing at fires the horses of the department