The Corvallis times. (Corvallis, Or.) 1888-1909, 1903-06-20

would have been swept away had
not the Palace hotel. a heavy brick
structure, diverted the current. l.
Identification of the dead has been
easy.
The bodies of DR.. Vaughn, Post
master, and his wife were found to.
day locked in each others em brace.
A foot of each body was all that
first came to light. Mrs. Vaughn's
dress was intact, and she still wore
her jewelry. At the railroad depot
a live 2-year old baby was found
yesterday in a grain sack in a pile
of drift. The mother was rescued
a short distance further down
stream.
Gsorge Conser's experience was
probably as extraordinary as any.
Mr.. Conser was sitting in his house
with his wife, DR.. McSword and
John Ayers when the flood picked
up the house. The floor of the front
hall bulged upward, letting in tor
rents of water. Conser and his
wife fed up stairs. They do not
know what became of McSword and
Ayers, and believe the two men
must have tried to escape out the
door. While the husband and wife
were up stairs petition fell in on
them and held them down to their
necks in the water. They thought
their last moment had come, and
kissed each other goodbye; but a
friendly current took the house
shoreward. There the structure was
all but demolished. When the wa
tsrs abated Conser kicked out a
window and with his wife escaped.
"We had given up the fight" said
he, "when we were saved. We lost
all our household effects, and these
clothes are all | own in the world. :"
C. E. Red6eld returned in the
early darkness Of this morning to
find his home, his wife and his
three children all swept away. As
he stood by the scene of desolation
he wept aloud in his anguish. His
was one of the handsomest houses
here, and not vestige of it re-
mains.
All stores were ordered opened
today by the emergency organizes
ton, so that goods could be pro-
cured for relieving distress. Goods
were confscated, especially imple-
ments, though the credit of the city
was assured for payment.
Hotel Heppner was completely
demolished, and about nine in
mates perished. One of its propri-
Eetors, Jones, was among the VIC
Tins. The other proprietor, Ash
baugh, escaped. About 40 persons
were in the hotel. Only one who
remained saved his life. Arthur
Ducket stuck to his room, though
nearly all of the structure broke
away from him. Ashbaugh was in
a cottage adjoining the hotel with
his wife and two children and a
child of Jones. He snatched up
the elder of his children and called
10 his wife to follow. She, in try
ing to save the other two babies,
lost her own and saved that Of
Jones. Believing she was doomed.
she sat down on the bed. The
house fell asunder and she found
herself wrestling with the torrents.
Bruised and cut by heavy timbers,
she lost her baby. With the Jones
baby in her armsshe foated against
the pickets of the Methodist church
yard and was saved.
A section of railroad track meas.
uring 1900 feet in length, had been
lifted bodily from its roadbed a
quarter of mile above, and had
been piled up, whore the waters
had made a sharp curve. in an In
describable macs Of wreckage. The
heavy steel rails had been bent and
twisted by the current into every
possible geometrical figure. One
section of rail, 200 feet long, on
which the fish plates were still un-
broken, was Tapped around a bluff
of mud go accurately that nowhere
in it's whole length was daylight to
be perceived between that and the
bank. Neither had the force of the
waters buried it further in the soil
than was necessary to hold it when
the flood receded. Two other rails,
20 feet long, fastened at one end by
a single tie, were drivenlike some
gigantic carpet-tack up to the hilt
through a point of land until the
points protruded few inches in
their side.
From Lexicon this morning small
parties Of searchers began to work
towards Heppner, but while it is