The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1897-06-26
ELLIS ISLAND STATION
DESTROYED BY FIRE
immense Immigrant stationls To-
tally Destroyed--Loss Of Nearly
A Million Dollars.
The IMMIGRANTS WERE RESCUED
Details of the Big Blaze and tho
Work OF Rcscuing Occupants
--Bnggnsc and Records
Were Burned.

New York, June ia fire early this
morning destroyed the immigrant land
Ing station, which covered almost all Of
ELLIS island, causing a property loss OF
$3.50, 900 to the United States govern
ment. All the government records and
baggage of immigrants We're burned.
Two hundred and fifty immigrants vera
rescued from the burning structures
INK brought safely to his city. Not
n of them received a burn. There
We're forty patients in the wooden hos
pital building in the rear of the main
structure who were carried out in cots
just before the hospital took fire. The
cause of the fire is a mystery. 1t tart
ed in the east end of the main structure,
which was more than q thousand feet
long, and three stories high. The first
floor to the building was almost entirely
given up to baggage, while the eastern
end of the second story was used for Of
fees. The third story was used as a re-
viewing CELERY. The middle and south
ern portions of the first two stories
We're used for landing bureaus and de-
tention rooms. 1t was in this part that
most of the immigrants were sleeping
last night. When chief night Waterman
Burke noticed the fire 1t was licking
around one OF the towers. He sum
moned thirty men employed unde him
who quickly unlocked the gates into
the detention room and aroused the
%sleepers, who We're reposing on benches
and on wire cots which the bureau pro
vides. One Of the night watchmcn was
also sent across the bridge to the wom-
ans dormitory, a two-story building in
the rear Of the landing depot. They
were hustled down stairs into a yard In
the rear to the ferry. where the boat
John G. Carlisle was lying with steam
up. In the meantime h men in the
main building had rushed out and
down the main double stairway at this
west enc to he boat. Surgeon Whts
and Assistants Surgeons White and
Gideon We're aroused, MT they at once
began to remove the forty patients in
the hospital. 1t was seen at a glance
that the big main building was doomed.
and it required quick work to carry out
the helpless sick before the blisterins
heat prevented an approach to the hos
pital building.
Doctors, nurses and attendants helped
in the work. Miss a. BoltZ, one OF the
nurses, carried out four children her
self. Once outside. the people carrying
cots rushed at a quick trot across the
grass plot to the lighter, never stopping
until the patients Were landed on the
boat. In this way all of the forty sick
people Were carried into a large cabin
on the Carlisle's main deck. In the
meantime some of the immigrants who
had escaped from the main building had
become anxious about their baggage
and despite the fact that the vast build
ing was fast being encompassed by
10 /, ~l,a loo1- 70 e,ua AZ T., oil
the known tongues they insisted their
all was contained in the boxes and bun
dies which they lac brought over.
Captain Burke and men had to fairly
fight them back on the boat They wept
and wrung their hands when they
| found it was impossible to save their
property.
The fire by this time had the entire
main building in its embrace and the
flames Illuminated the whole harbor,
lighting up the lower end of New York
almost as plainly as day. Jersey City
and Brooklyn were thrown into bold re-
lief by the flames. Lighted by this
glare, the paint blistering from her
sides, the Carlisle steamed out of the
long slip into the upper bay. She had
been preceded but a few minute earlier
by the transfer steamers Emmons, Ha.
eel Kirke and John f. Moore, with three
big immigrant barges.
The battery in this city was crowded
by thousands who We're attracted thith.
er by the lurid sky and the piers along
Jersey City and Brooklyn water front
contained throngs of people, specializing
as to the possible loss of life. Two
squads of police from Pier A reached
the island in police launches, and the
fire boat New Yorker had also steamed
ever to the island, and all the streams
from her heaviest pumps were turned on
the fire.
AT 2 o'clock the flames We're under
control. The big station. hospital.
laundry, restaurant. doctors houses and
number of small out buildings are in
ashes. The engine house is the only
building of Importance on the island
which escaped.
When the ferry BOAT Carlisle reached
the barge office landing in this city,
ambulances from Governuer and Hud.
son street hospitals met the boat and
the patients from Ellis Island hospital
were divided between the two institu-
tons. In an interview, Commissioner
of Immigration DR.. SENIOR, said this
morning the loss to the government
would be s7sO,o0O.
A Poor Prospect for Recovery.
New York Evening Journal: Doctor