Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-09-07
HEAVY ARCHES FALL
COLLAPSE or CHiCAGO's NEW
COLISEUM STRUCTURE.
Crash Comes Without Warming to
Workmen, aud Many Are Caught Be
meath Heavy Ruins-In Addition &c
Nine killed. Thirteen Are Injured.

Iron Orders creaked; there was a
shout. Look out! It's falling!' wild
rush Of men on the ground; the agonlzed
cry of thirty bridge workers as they were
hurled sixty-fve feet through the air;
and the framework Of the new Coliseum,
Wabash avenue and Fifteenth street.
Chicago, Monday afternoon at 5 O'Clock
was a wreck, and under its ruins nine
men lay dead, thirteen injured, many OF
them fatally, and five were missing.
Workmen Of the Pittsburg Bridge
Company, the firm which did the iron
work, were tearing down the traveller
used in building the twelve great arches.
During the lowering of the first section
the structure was noticed to tremble, and
complaint was made by several of the
men.
Then came the taking down Of the
massive beams that formed the second
section. A rome thrown over the third
arch from the south wall was used to
steady the pieces Of lumber as they de-
scended. One was poised in the air anG
Engineer McCabe waited below for the
signal to lower. Suddenly the engine
gave a snort, the arch trembled, began
to sway. Then came the shout Of alarm,
the race for safety and the collapse of
the building.
Men on the ground ran through the
arches, now beginning to creak like
breaking laths, and most Of them had
time to reach the street ~ the alley, but
their unfortunate cor, panions on the
arches came slowly down to injury and
death.
The movement of the arches was at
first so slow it seemed as if minutes were
consumed before they swayed far enough
to touch each other. When they came
together there was the sound of rending
iron Orders and braces, the breaking of
rivets and trusses, and the whole struc-
ture came down with crash, while the
doomed men shrieked out their last pray
ers as they were dashed against piles of
unused braces or fell under portions of
the broken arches.
One of the falling columns overturned
the boiler and the escaping steam cover
ed the wreck with binding veil, white
clouds of dust rose from the earth to
battle the search for the wounded, some
of whom called out piteously
Columns and arches lay piled on one
another, broken and shattered as though
they were staff; heavy timbers, two feet
square, were twisted and splintered as
if they were twigs, and beneath this
mass of iron and wood and stone human
beings were writing in pain or were ly.
ing cold in death.
Fire added to the horror, the overturn-
ed engines kindling the woodwork near
them, but these incipient blazes were
soon extinguished and the whole atten-
ton Of firemen, policemen and citizens
was given to rescuing the victims and
taking out the bodies of the dead. There
were hundreds of willing hands to help
drag the iron beams from the crushed
and battered fragments of men and to
carry the bodies tenderly to the ambu-
lances.
The living were first taken from the
ruins, but at times the rescuers found it
difficult to determine whether or not the
mangled forms they carried so tenderly
Still retained the spark of life. Nine men
were dead. Their bodies were taken out
mutilated almost beyond human sem
blance by the blunt edges of the ponder
Gus metal beams. Twelve other unfor-
tulates, still alive, but shrieking and
writing with the pain Of cruel injuries,
some of them legless, others making pite-
Gus appeals with the stumps Of what
We're once arms, were removed, and more
deaths may follow.
1t has not yet been decided where the
boss, which may reach $4,000, will fall.
The work of the Pittsburg Bridge Com
pany was just finished, the last arch hav-
ing been placed Saturday The mon were
placing the bolts and rivets Monday and
removing the traveller and scaffolding
used in doing the work Members Of the
firm were congratulating themselves
that they had had no accident, and the
work was done. But the work had not
been accepted by the Coliseum company
and the question of responsibility for the
loss on the building rests unsettled.
The exact cause for the collapse seems
to be unknown, at least those supposed
to know hesitate to put themselves or
record. Many theories are advanced but
it may require an official investigation to
bring out the truth and properly place the
responsibility.