Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1899-09-07
HEAVY ARCHES FALL
COLLAPSE OF CHICAGO'S NEW
COLISEUM STRUCTURE.
Crash Comes without Warming to
Work men, and Many Are Caught Be-
meath Heavy Ruins-In Addition to
Nine Killed, Thirteen Are Injured.


Iron girders creaked; there was q
shout, Look out. It's fallingv' wild
rush of men on the ground; the agonized
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 o'clock
was 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 rope 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 and
Engineer McCabe waited below for the
signal to lower. Suddenly the engine
gave a snort, the arch trembled, began
10 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 nr the alley, but
their unfortunate companions 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 girders and braces, the breaking of
rivets and trusses, and the whole struc-
ture came down with a 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 q 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 writhing 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 bazes were
soon extinguished and the whole atten-
was given TO rcscuing 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
| aid 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 II
difficult TO determine whether or not the
manged forms they carried so tenderly
Still retained the spark Of life. Nine men
| were dead Their bodies We're taken out
| mutilated almost beyond human sem
| blance by the blunt edges Of the ponder
Gus metal beams. Twelve other unfor-
| tunates, still alive, but shrieking and
writhing with the pain of cruel injuries,
| sO.ne of them legless, others making pite-
| were once arms, were removed, and more
| deaths may follow.
1t has not yet been decided where the
Nss, 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 men 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 on
record. Many theories are advanced, but
ii may require an official investigation to
| bring out the truth and properly place the
responsibility.