The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1904-11-26
THIRTY NEGROES
IN PERIL BY FIRE
Exciting Time at an Early Morning
Fire In a Negro Lodging
House in St. Louis.
-FOUR WOMEN WERE INJURED
BY SUfF0CATl0N OR JUMPING.
Firemen and Policemen Use SAL
wage Corps Tarpau1ins as Life
Nets to Catch the Imperiiied .Oc-
cupants As They Leaped From the
windows.

St. Louis, Nov. 22.-Thirty negroes,
men, women and children, penned on
the second and third floors of a burn
ing building at 1900 Morgan street at
five o'clock Tuesday morning saved
themselves from death by jumping
from windows into tarpaulins held by
firemen, by cropping their way to the
street down smoke and fame-illed
s~tairways, and by climbing through a
scuttle to the roof and thence to adj
joining buildings to be taken down by
firemen.
Four women, injured in their efforts
to escape, are at the city hospital. One
of them is unconscious and will prob
ably die.
Another, who discovered the fire, and
dashed into the building to rou the
s~leepers, has a broken leg. She was
imprisoned by the fire, forced to hang
out of a window to escape smoke and
flames, and dropped from a third-story
ledge to the ground.
The building is a lodging house.
There are four oom on each of the
two top floors, and in these were hud-
died together the 80 tenants, half of
them being women and several being
children.
The fire originated near the center
of the third floor. Lettie Brown, who
lives in the house, was returning home
from work at a restaurant and saw
the blaze. She gave the alarm, and
ran into the house to awaken the in
mates. Patrolman McDermott, who
walks that beat, heard her cries and
repeated them.
Patrolmen Grace and Silverman, who
were on adjoining beats, Joined Nc
Dermott, and ran to the stairs and
called to the occupants, all of whom
seemed to be aroused.
When the fire department arrived
the windows we're filled with men and
women calling to be rescued. Tar
paulins belonging to the Salvage corps
were pressed into service as ~life-nets,
and were held by the police and fire
men.
Too excited to wait for the arrival
of the firemen, Nancy Smith, aged 35,
jumped from a window of the third
floor, striking the sidewalk and frac-
turing her left hip.
Overcome by the smoke, Susie Blu
chanan, aged 81, fell a. she was crop
ing her way down the stairway from
the second story and dislocated her
wrist.
When the fremen of Engine Com
pany IS forced their way to the third
floor with a line of hose they found
Lizzie Hubbard, 80 years old, lying
on the floor in a corner of the roc
unconscious from the dense smoke.
She was carried to the street and
laid on a pile of bedding that had
been thrown from the windows, and
the iremen quickly went to work with
artificial respiration in their efforts
to review her while the ambulance was
on the way from the d~ispensary.
Charles Bass and his wife, Nellie,
with their .14-months-old baby, were
on the second floor when they were
awakened by one of the dodgers. Fore
ing their way through the smoke and
flames, with the baby in the mothers
arms, the trio reached the street, COM
pletely exhausted from their efforts.
They were taken to a nearby house,
and an hour later were little the worse
for their experience.
The other dodgers reached a place
of safety by climbing to the roof, from
which they were taken on ladders
raised by the iremen, by the stairway
to the street, and by jumping into the
tarpaulins on the sidewalk.
The fire, which is supposed to have
started from a lighted pipe or cigar
dropping into a pile of bedding, dam
aged the building, which is owned by
Mrs. Mary Allen, to the extent of
about $500. The contents suffered a
loss of not over 800, according to the