San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-06-15
THE FIRE Demons FURY.
Wrought On Uncle Sans
Property.
IMMIGRANT STATION ON ELLIS
ISLAND, NEW YORK TO-
TALLY DESTROYED.
The Government Loss Will Reach
$7SO,OOO. Beside That Of The
Immigrants The Scenes
During The Blaze We're
Very Exciting.

| hour this morning fire destroyed the
immigrant landing station that COW
cred almost all of Ellis island, causing
property loss of about $7S0,0O0 to the
United States government. All of the
government records and the baggage
burned. Two hundred and fifty immi
grants were rescued from the burning
structures and brought safely to this
city. Not one of them received a burn.
There were forty patients in the
wooden hospital building in the rear
of the main structure who were car
ried out in cots just before the hospital
took fire.
The cause of the fire is a mys-
terry. 1t started in the east end of the
main structure which was mare than
1000 feet long and three stories high
The first floor of this building was al
most entirely given up to baggage,
while the eastern end of the second
story was used for offices. The third
story was used as a reviewing gallery.
The middle and southern portions of
the first two stories were used for land
ing bureaus and detention rooms. 1t
was in this part of the building that
most of the immigrants were sleeping
last night. WhensChief Night Watch
man Burke saw the fire it was lick
ing around one of the towers. He at
once summoned the thirty men en-
ployed under him, who quickly un-
locked the iron gates leading into the
deteneion room and awoke the sleepers
who were reposing on benches and on
TIL Ias
One of the night watchmen was also
sent across the bridge to the woman's
dormitory, contained in two story
building in the rear of the landing de-
pot They We're hustled down stairs
in the yard in the rear of the landing
depot and then conducted around the
west end of the building and so on to
the ferry slip, where the ferry boat John
G. Carlisle was lying with steam up.
Meanwhile the men in the building
had been rushed out and down the
main double stairway at the west end
of the boat Surgeon ]. M. White and
Assistant Surgeons White and Gideon
had been aroused by this time and
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 1t re-
quired quick work to carry out the
helpless Sick before the blistering heat
prevented an approach to the hospital
building. Doctors, nurses and atten-
dants helped in the work. Miss A.
Bolt, one of the nurses, carried out
four of the children herself.
Once outside, the people, carrying
cots, rushed at a quick trot across the
plot to the ferry, never stopping till
the patients were landed on the boats.
In this way forty sick were carried in
to the large cabin on the Carlisle's
main deck,
Meantime some of the immigrants
who had escaped from the main bull
ding had become anxious about their
baggage and despite the fact that the
vast building was fast being encom-
passed by the flames, rushed back to
save it.
In all the known tongues, they insis-
ted that their all was contained in the
boxes and bundles which they had
grought over. Capt. Burke and his
men had to fairly fight them back to
the boat They wrung their hands and
wept when they found that it was i'm
possible to save their property.
The fire by this time had the entire
main building in it's 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, which licked and
cracked around the cornices and |
shriveled up the great corrugated iron
roof of the immigration building.
Lighted by this glare with the paint |
blistering from her sides, the Car
isle steamed out of the long slip into
the Upper bay.
She had been preceded but a few
earlier by the transfer steam |
ers Emmons, Hazel Kirke. and John |
E. Moore with three Of the big imml- |
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