Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1904-02-20
POPULOUS HARBOR
IS NOW DESERTED.
Red Hand of the Fire Wiped
Out its Historic and Pic
turesque Foreground

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Baltimore Herald saturday
A panorama of ruin stretches from
Light street to where Jones' falls emp
ties into the harbor. The scourge that
wiped out the busiest section Of the city
has cast a gloom over the harbor.
Vessels. apparently deserted. rise at
their anchors. soldiers patrol the ruined
wharves. here and there u tug steams
lazily about. and patrol boats. loaded
with naval militia. pass and repass on
guard duty. A stiffness almost death
like has settled over what was one of the
most populous harbors on the Atlantic
seaboard
Shapeless masses of brick and stone
and sections of walls are all that is left
of the warehouses and factories that
once lined the water front from the head
of the basin TO half way down the har-
Dor. Skeletons of the taller buildings,
barely discernible through the smoke
and haze, form the background and the
highest point in the skyline. which.
strangely enough. is still what it used
to be a. far as height is concerned.
cHARRED wHARvEs ARE DESERTED.
The fire reached clear to the waters
edge. and only the charred piles of the
wharves IN the fire-swept section re-
main. The vessels and barges that were
moored to them were towed away be-
fore the fire reached the warves, and
thousands of dollars worth of shipping
property was saved.
Tangled wires block the streets that
lead from the water front TO the upper
parts of the city, and the sidewalks are
piled high with debris Here and there
the four walls of house are still stand
ing. but these are few and far between
Sans roofs. sans floors, the windows of
the houses in the deserted city look like
great hollow eyes peering out over the
ruins.
Corners of walls stand like great sen.
tinels, and the corners of walls. wide
enough to take in a window, look like
sentry boxes.
LOoTERS KEPT AT RAY
Ruin and desolation seem to be every
where. Thousands of men at work clear
ing the streets have not yet gotten into
the heart of the fire-swept zone, and for
square after square the only sign of life
are the soldiers who march up and down
the border line between the houses and
the water to keep hooters from landing
MONUMENT OF ICE.
Layer after layer of ice. framed in
like a picture by charred and burned
woodwork. mark where one of the
American Ice Company's storehouses
once stood on West Falls avenue. The
spread of the fire was checked Just at
this point. where the most stubborn
stand of the whole fire was made for
fear that the blaze would cross the falls
and lick up the canneries toward the
south. Here the firemen were rein
forced from the water side by the police
boat Lannan. under the command of
Capt. Albert l.. League That the fire
was stayed at the falls was due in a
large measure to the hard work done by
the crew Of that boat
Railroad barges were lowed alongside
the icehouses yesterday and men were
put to work unloading the contents into
freight cars. Despite the heat from the
fire the water from the hose used by the
firemen froze the cakes of ice into a
solid mass, which stands thirty or forty
feet high.
At the foot of Spears wharf the Balti-
more and Ohio Railroad has already
commenced its work of rebuilding. A
pile driver and laboring force started
early yesterday morning to demolish
the burned piles of the old wharf and to
place new ones.
AT night the lights twinkle on the
southern side of the city as they al
ways did and the vessels anchored on
the flats show lanterns at their mast
heads. On the north the glow from the
dying fires in the devastated part of the
city fills the sky, and the lanterns
carried by patroling squads and sentries
are yellow blurs in the darkness