Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-10-26
BODIES ARE
IN THE RUINS
Many Dead and Missing in the
Kansas City Disaster Es-
cape Was Cutoff.

KANSAS CITY, Kan, Oct. 26.-In
the ruins of the Chamber of Commerce
building, destroyed by fire at an early
hour, there are from half n dozen to
thirty bodies, according to estimates
by tiremen.
The known dead number four, and
several are known to be missing, while
at least fifty were more or less serious
ly injured in escaping from the fire
trap. Only Il thorough search of the
ruins can determine the exact number
of victims.
A single body has been removered
from the ruins, that of ID. X. Young.
1t is known that Charles A. Lynch and
the infant son Of Mr.. and Mrs. George
Sparks are dead, but their bodies have
not been recovered. ]. II. Branham, a
wagon maker, has died in a hospital.
1t is thought that the total dead will be
about ten.
The building, used as a tenement
house and containing a hundred rooms,
held thirty families of more than a
hundred persons and a large number
of transients.
So quickly did the flames. which
started on the ground floor, spread
that a few minutes after they were
discovered all means of escape by the
stairways was shut off. On two sides
of the building the elevated railway
tracks hemmed it in and made still
harder the work of the firemen.
Wbau tba framen nrrivaI fhov G ~ ~
men hanging from window sills on the
upper floors and frantic women with
babies in arms and children clinging
to them, leaning far out from the win
dows, unable to find any means of .es-
cape and yet taking advantage Of the
little fresh air which the windows af-
forded.
Escape for those on the upper three
floors was completely cut off. The in
mates were asleep when the fire start
ed, and by the time they crowded to
the fire escapes the flames had envel-
oped that side of the building, making
the descent to the street impossible.
The fire ladders fell short.
Men, women and children fought
their way TO the roof. Children were
passed from hand to hand through the
opening in the roof like buckets of wa
Ter along a fire line. In a few minutes
the roof vas crowded With terrified
persons, and more were massed in the
Railways below.
Unable to stand the heat longer, sew
eral on the roof leaped to the ground
below. Many were badly injured. Some
are believed to have been killed.
The firemen scaled their ladders and
the children and fainting wo-
men, some with their dresses ablaze, to
At the last moment those re-
naming on the roof escaped oyer a
to an adjoining building.
II. G. Wilson pitched his wife from
the fourth floor to the firemen on the
ladders below and then, with his young
jumped into the arms of the fire.
men himself.
Jesse Ford, a laborer, with his wife
md young baby, climbed out of a room
)n the fourth fioor and, walking along
/ beam to Il point directly above the
iremen, dropped both wife and baby
to them. He himself jumped and
vas saved by the firemen.
An unidentified child was dashed to
he street when those below failed to
it.
OF the persons seriously hurt. Frank
Ditar swung himself by a rope from
he fourth floor. He was injured about
he bodv and Internally
Firemen searching in the ruins say
hat from twenty-five to thirty persons
will be found to be buried there. The
Chamber of Commerce building was at
Park and Central avenues, in the Riv-
district.
Tne loss is estimated at 100000.