The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1906-04-27
FIRST ELECTRIC TICK
TELLING OF THE QUAKE
It Was Overheard in Des Moines
While Chicago Was Be-
ing Called.
A MOMENTOUS PAUSE
Postal Operators in Frisco Calico
Frantically for Connection as Big
Building Careened and Threat
ened to Collapse.

Des Moines. Ia, April 25.-G. Walter
Barr relates the following:
Dies Moines had the interesting eN-
perience of hearing the first gasp for
breath of stricken and stunned San
Francisco, while the walls of the solid
buildings near the Golden Gate were
still trembling and terrorizing the in,
habitants of the city to which a little
later the eyes of the whole world We're
turned.
I'VE may go down any second-if we
stop, You know what is the matter and
that we are rome"
Then a few more hurried words try.
ing to tell what had happened and then
silence, while a half dozen men stood
looking almost blankly at n another
in an office OF Fifth street. One, two,
three, four, five, six. seven minutes
passed and then the voice from the
brass tongue again began it's rapid and
somewhat disconnected words. all OF
them in the vocabulary of destruction.
Up to this time the men listening in
Des Moines did not know whence the
vibrant voice came. The black and
brass clatter paused q little later long
enough for one of them to ash the
question with literally tightening speed
in the few letters which are the code
signs for the words of the sentences:
Doom of City Told Briefly.
What is the matter and who are
you?"
San Francisco has been destroyed by
an earthquake"-the reply was con-
code signals. and as the men in Des
Moines glanced at the clock on the wall
it stood at T:16 O'Clock and only three
minutes had elapsed since the earth
trembled and tumbled down the town
of good Saint Francisco.
Tho writnr of tho ,o,nScooa y,o e ~, ~.
top room of the Postal telegraph
building in the doomed city. In this
twentieth century it is as important to
sustain lines of communication as to
save lives. The operators at work in
the dog watch that morning We're he
rushed to safety they stuck to the keys,
although h loor n walls swayed
like a stateroom on a liner. Once they
faltered for that seven minutes, but
they rallied and hurried back to the
KEYS. That was only the beginning
tho elements of the underworld dur
ing which they established a camp in
Oakland, pushed forward to the San
Francisco ferry house after two days,
were driven out again by the invincible
confagration, and an hour later once
more captured the lately abandoned op-
Grating room on the edge of the sea but
still; inside the city of San Francisco.
Three Minutes After Quake.
1t was one of these men-the most
important men to the outside world
and to the tens of thousands of fear.
full folk with friends in the city-whc
made the vibrations which were trans.
lated in Des Moines into news of the
calamity three minutes after it oc.
cured.
Among the busiest telegraph wires
N the world are those which carry the
MESSAGES of the Postal company from
New York to San Francisco and on by
cabla to the orient. Some Of them run
through the Des Moines office, and they
are watched over as Damocles watched
the hair ~suspending tho sword over his
head. That morning Superintendent
Fox got home from a trip over his dis
trict too late to go out to his house to
bed and too early to begin the work
Of the day. He took a little nap in his
office n then went down to the oper-
atins, room. Almost automatically he
walked toward the transcontinental
wires which are SO important. and for
q SEXTON of which the Des Moines Of
flee is responsible. AS Mr.. Fox turned
his ear to the instruments and repeat
ers for a critical examination, he was
startled by the words ringing from tho
sounder in the tin hood:
I'VE may &c down any second-if we
stop. you will know wha is the mat
ter md that we are gone"
Chicago Was DiIatory.
An exclamation brought all the op.
orators not actually busy to that cor.
ner of the room. The seven minutes
OF silence were seven minutes Of In.
tense suspense to the superintendent
and his men, and they rapidly and
carefully made sure that the wires anG
%repeaters were in perfect condition. No.
be y dared to open q key for fear Of
!~nterrupting the most important use OF
the wire any of them had ever heard,
Finally the sounder ratified again spas.
medically:
"CH-cH-CH-CH ST CH-CH-
| ST"
Car 1 help you-DM," interrupted
not instantly answer the call from the
battered and almost wrecked Postal
building by the the Pacific ocean"
Get Chicago in," came the reply
from the mar In the midst of the de.
struction of a great city. And on an
other Wire the superintendent got the
ear of the Chicago office and told the
operator to hurry over to the desk
where the stricken San Francisco wa
so frantically calling to the world on
the only connection there was between
the horrors of Market street and the
sunshine of tse rest of humanity. Chi.
cago answered. That Postal operator
dAl0 oSACio SUM w slS PoSlS AiiSil lilS
building under them was alame. The
world was told a little of the calamity
And then came the deluge of kilograms
and the fighting to keep communication
open. which the Postal company did by
accomplishing ne impossible.
ART WORKS LOST.
Metropolitan Museum of New York Is
Loser bv Catestrophc.
New York. April 22-The Metropoiitan