The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-01-03
ENGULFED BY THE EARTH
GREAT CAVE-IN UNDER VERY
 HEART OF OLYPHANT, PA.
A Hotel and Three Other Buildings Swallowed Up but No One Intured- Miners Have Narrow Escaps-GivinS Away of Timber Supports in Aban- doned Mines Causes the Settling.

Scranton, Pa., Jan. 2.-Abandoned workings of the Eddy Creek colliery of the Delaware and Hudson Co.,. beneath the very heart of the town of Olyphant caved in tLis afternoon and engulfed four frame buildings. covering an ag- gregate ground space of 5000 square feet.
 The settling was gradual and people in the affected territory escaped with out being immediately endangered A gang of men and boys who were at work in the mine beyond the fall en- countered flooded dip or depression in vein in making their way out by a circuitous route, and had to swim from one rise to the other. No one either above or below ground, however, sus- tained any injury.
 At o'clock the settling began. At 3:30 it was no longer perceptible. In the intervening half hour O'Brien's S three story hotel, Mrs. Ann Evans double dwelling, Mrs. Jane Ackerly's S double story building and a one story barber shop were mound of debris in the yaWning pile, with the uppermost part of the mound forty feet below the surface. O'Brien's hotel, which plunged first into the opening, has entirely dis appeared. A few houses are projecting over the edge of the pit. The vein that caved is 115 feet below the surface
 The settling started in the street just in front of the hotel property. The brick street pavement was seen to be working and the telegraph poles and trees along the curb were wobbling. The cause was at once apparent and the alarm given to all the neighborhood. Two sick guests were removed from the hotel and taken two blocks away to a private house. Some attempt was made at saving the contents of the buildings but the rapidly increasing size of the opening in the street put a stop to this and every one fled from the neighbor- hood.
 Twenty minutes after the disturbance was first noticed the opening had wid- ened until it reached all the way across the street and half way beneath the 70 'Brien hotel Then with a terrific crash the hotel pitched forward, turn led completely bout and landed on it's roof in the bottom of the abyss. A moment later the adjoining double dwelling of Mrs Evans fell over the edge and demolished itself on the ruins of the hotel. The Ackerly double store building and the Evans barber shop property slid into the chasn about the same time and piled themselves broken and twisted on the other debris. To- night it is believed there will be nc further settling. The property damage is estimated at $30,0O0.
 District Superintendent Bennett of the Delaware and Hudson Co.,, who went into the mine with a party of other of ficials to make an examination, reports that the settling had ceased. The work ings which caved were in the uppermost part of the worked out veins. The timbers, it s explained bv the company officials, supported thiu roof of rock which in turn supported stratas of quicksand and gravel extending to the surface. The timbers routed, the roof gave way and all above them sunk into the pit.