The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-03-22

Sioux City, Ia, March 21.-One of the
most serious fires in the history OF
Sioux City completely destroyed the
warehouse of the Western Transfer
company today, together with its con-
tents, entailing a loss of more than
500. 600 The high wind which was
blowing, communicated the fire TO the
linseed oil mill across the street and 1t
was practically destroyed and great
er part of its contents consumed, max
ing a total loss of $1,000 The wind,
which had been from the southeast,
then changed and increased in veloci-
~, blowing for time directly from the
east. This communicated the flames
to the two big tanks owned by the lin
seed oil mills. and the platform ON
which they rested began To burn.
Thousands OF peCp.e hid Congregated
by this time and whe n they saw the
'ank on fire. tf.sre was q wild stampede
he storage building was all immense
structure, o00X60 feet, including the
brick storage annex. The main part
OF the elevator was five stories high
and had a capacity OF 10000 bushels.
In the bins at the time were stored
100000 bushels of fax seed and on the
linseed oil cake was ready for the mar
ket. In the annex, the oil was in huge
tanks, having an estimated capacity of
10000 gallons.
When it was plain that nothing could
be done toward saving the implement
warehouse, the firmen turned their at
teton 10 saving the oil mill storage
house. Mayor Fletcher telegraphed
TO Lemars and Missouri Valley for the
srf1l.l 1f in md
they were soon ready to respond. but
when IL was found that the flre could
be controlled. messages We're sent 10
hold them back.
IRON IN THE WAY
The building of the Western Transfer
company was a mammoth frame struc-
ture, six stories high, covered with cor
rugated iron. The iron aided the flame
as ii kept water from eaching the wood
work. The huge four story and base
ment ware house, 100 by $50 feet was
filled from 10 top to bottom with farm
implements and machinery, valued at
about $4,000. This machinery was
owned by about twenty implement
companies in different parts of the
United States. The list of these COM
panieS is as follows: Rock Island
Plow company, Rock Island, ILL.,; Ne
braska Moline Plow company. Omaha,
Neb.; Sandwich Manufacturing COM
pany, Sandwich, ILL.,; Walter a. Wood
a .9sn9sfi. .........- etaoin shrdlu etao
Harvester company, st. Paul; ]. F.
man and Taylor Machinery company,
Mansfield, Ohio; Advance Thresher
company. Battle Creek, Mich; King
man K Co., Omaha, Neb.; Norwegian
Plow company, Dubuque, Iowa; Cham
bers, BeerinS & Quinlan company, Deca-
tur, Ills. +. Is. Tate * Co, Decatur,
H.; Hurst, Dunn & Co, Peoria. Ill. !;
Rockford Manufacturing company,
Rockford. H.; Oliver Chilled Pillow
Works, South Bend, Ind; Sterling Man
ufacturing company, Sterling. ILL.,
Stoddard Manufacturing company,
Dayton, Ohio: James Selby & Co, Peo-
ria, ILL.,; Selby, Starr & Co, Peoria,
Ill; Acme Harvester company, Pekin,
Ill. .
The contents of the burned ware
house carried insurance aggregating
S3l. $50, in the following companies: In
surance Company of North America,
So $50; Liverpool, London and Globe,
81 900: Royal. Sc, 900; Commercial Uuion,
$1,000; Phoenix, $500, Norwich Union,
SO 600; Traders, 5000: Franklin, $1,000:
Philadelphia Underwriters, $4,000;
Pennsylvania Fire, 5000.
The warehouse itself was protected
by $50, 600 insurance in the Liverpool,
London and Globe company. lnsur-
ance on the oil mill cannot be ascer-
tanned, as the National Linseed Oil
company handles the insurance on all
its plants. The Conklin and PennSyl-
vania companies each carried $4,000 and
the Commercial Union $4,000 on seed in
the elevator. The value of the contents
of the elevator at the market price
Unr!id ma kn the loss 5000 utlU