The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-01-04


James Mclean.
John Barridge.
Oswald Bruce.
B. Jacques.
W. H. Dell.
Stephen Williams.
John Fellows.
Allen Towe.
Unidentified man.
The injured, so far as can be learned,
include the following:
DR.. Wilson, the mayor-elect.
Alderman Carrothers, slightly injured.
Edward Mopkin.
- Burgess.
William Gray, leg broken.
- Fleming, both arms broken.
William Jones, water commissioner
elect, badly bruised.
Joshua Darch.
John Blanche.
Alderman Neil Cooper.
- Van Wyck.
George W. Yates, city editor of the
News.
Harry Passmore, reporter on the Ad-
vertiser staff.
Those who were more seriously injured
were carried to neighboring drug stores,
whence they were taken to the hospital
or to their homes after their injuries had
been attended to.
rooms of Alderman Parnel, the defeated
candidate for mayor, directly across the
street.
At the close of the polls a crowd had
gathered in the city hall, where it had
been the custom in years past for the
successful candidates to address the elect
ors.
The building was crowded to the very
doors probably 1000 people being jammed
TN I'm
in the proceedings when the audience
called for several of the newly elected
aldermen at once, and there was some
delay in securing a speaker to address
them. Alderman CarrOthers Joined the
mayor in an effort to secure quiet. In
response to numerous calls, r. TOothe
was pushed toward the platform on which
the speakers stood. As he reached it
there was an ominous cracking and the
raised platform on which the mayor and
the newly elected aldermen were seated
seemed to pitch forward to the floor. A
beam running twenty feet along the cen
ter of the hall had given away and the
crowded mass standing above that sec
ton of the floor was thrown in a heap
to the bottom. A large safe stood in
one corner of the hall, and, with a huge
steam coil weighing half a ton, came
crashing down on the heads of the vic
tins.
Following the crash there was a wild
rush for the doors. At the south door,
where the majority of the crowd had en-
tered, there was a terrific panic. Those
in front were thrown down by the crowd
behind, shrieking and fighting for the door
and safety. Only one half of the rear
door, a space of probably three feet, was
OPEN and in the mad rush no one thought
to open the door in its entirety, and 800
people struggled through the narrow
space the strong bearing down the
weaker.
Alderman Neil Cooper was among the
first to be dragged out of the mass of
broken beams. He was quickly carried
to an adjoining store and in a moment
half a dozen more were keeping him com
pany.
Several men lowered ropes and endeav-
ored to haul the wounded out of the pile.
From under the massed weight of broken
beams came many cries for help. The
windows on the ground floor were broken
in and the living and the dead were ten
Derby passed to the waiting ambulance.
An investigation of the wreck after the
disclosed the fact that a
whole section of the floor had dropped,
the joists having been cut off as though
the work had been done with saw
The building was an old one, having
been erected in the early fifties, and of
late additional stories have been placed on
the old wall In the Grand Opera House,
which adjoins the wrecked building, the
first act of THE Girl From Paris had
Just been concluded when word was whis-
pered through the theater of the calam-
itv. A panic was imminent, but was
averted by the actors and ushers, and the
people quickly left the building.