The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-26
2 DEAD, "A MISSING AFTER FIRE
MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE IN PERIL
IN KANSAS CITY BLAZE.
Women With Children Cling TO windows
Awaiting Rescue While Ladders Arc In
Use at Another Fire -FIremcn DO Many
Feats OI Daring building n Firetrap

KANSAS CITY. Oct. 25.-- Let me burn.
but for Gods sake save my children cried
u woman at a fourth STORY window, as she
held a small child in her arms.
! In the streets below hundreds Of men
were surging around the four story Chamber
Of Commerce Building in Kansas City, Kan,
while IL was burning shortly after mid
night. The men were all ready to help
but they were powerless.
The windows Of the burning building
soon filed with men, women and children,
and the woman with the child in her arms
became but one Of many.
The big truck from fire headquarters.
with its long extension ladders, was at a
fire at Eighteenth street and Minnesota
avenue. A small truck from Armourdalc
was the frst 10 arrive. When II drove up
the windows were filed with men and
women, while many chung to projections
outside. Before the ladders arrived the
hose companies sprayed water over these
people in an endeavor TO save them.
"Stay there, you're all right; don't move
there's a ladder coming
Men in the crowd below thus encouraged
the people in the windows. 1t was only
a few minutes till the ladders came, but it
seemed like hours to those ia the streets.
When the truck pulled up a dozen men
sprang from the crowd and grabbed ladders.
Here's a man! He'll fall in a minute II we
don't get him down. cried one.
There's a woman over here n she
must be saved" cried another, as they trleu
| to pull the ladders away from )ne another
Four firemen ran up a double adder and
rescued two men on the second floor.
Then the other ladder truck came and a
few minutes later the big truck arrived
! from the Missouri side. The work OF rescue
went on.
While the hremen were taking people
down the ladders scores were clamberlnG
down the three fire escapes,
The occupants of the building were
! reused by Alexander McCambridge, the
engineer of the building, and william MuIvl-
hill, a Missouri Pacific train dispatcher.
THE fire was coming up through the
centre of to- building so that il was i'm
| possible to ret down the ~stairways,' IA d
Mulvihill. All the occupants Of the third
floor escaped by ladders or by the fire
escapes, except "A few in the southwest
wing. | do not know how many Of them
got out or how many persisted
A spectacular rescue was made on the
Central avenue side Of the building. A
woman and two children were seen at a
| window on the fourth floor. Charles Baker,
Timothy Morrisey and Clarence Powers
placed scaling ladders from window to
window and saved them.
The Chamber of Commerce Building
had long been regarded as a tiretrap. The
exterior was Of brick, but the interior was
of wood around an open court. There
were three fire escapes but the fire started
near the escapes, so that many were cut of.
Two sides Of the building, which was
i used as a rooming house, were thus left I'M
protected.
The number of persons in the building
is estimated at between l20 and $50. Those
known to he dead are j. +. Branham. a
wagon maker, body burned and both legs
! broken by jumping from a window on the
third floor, and an unidentified man taken
from the ruins this morning.
NFourteen persons are reported missing
this afternoon.