Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1908-01-14
FLAMES Kill -FOUR
loss is S5,00O,000.
DISASTROUS FIRE ATTACKS 4
1s-sToRY sKYscRAPER in
NEW YORK.
DOOM is SEALED
WHEN FLOOR FALLS
Flremen Drop to Death in Awful
Furnace-Water Weak and Fight
ers Are at Observation-Disclosures
grafton Interrupts Traffic.

New York, Jan. 13.-Four men,
three of them f,remen, were killed,
and about $5,000,OOO worth Of prop
erty was destroyed by fire which
ruined the history Parker building at
Fourth avenue and Nineteenth street
Saturday. The firemen are believed
to have gone down in the blazing
ruins when one of the floors fell, but,
none of their comrades witnessed
their deaths. The dead: John Fal-
Ion, Thomas O'Connor, Thomas Phil
lips. all members Of an engine COM
| pany. Robert Boyer, a printer who
was at work in the building when the
fire started, was missed afterward and
was believed to have been killed.
Water Pressure Weak.
The fire began on the sixth floor OF
the building. Bafled by weak water
pressure and bursting hose, the fire.
men worked at great disadvantage.
Water could not be forced above the
eighth story. Falling floors cut off
the escape to the street not only of
fremen but of other occupants, and
they were rescued, only by the most
daring work. The foundations of the
building abutted against the subway
and the walls, bullying when the steel
, posts and Orders first expanded and
then contracted, threatening to fal
and crush the tube.
= Traffic Is Suspended.
All traffic in the subway between
Fourteenth street and the Grand Cen
r trail station at Forty-second street was
: suspended while the fire was at it,
!, worst in the early hours, but was re
] sumed during the height of the earl,
t rush of passengers down town, onl
to be suspended again under urgen
L orders of the fire and building dc
!. partments.
e For hours after the fire was pract
9 cally extinguished it was still re
l. garded as too dangerous to run train
by the building, and subway passer
gers were forced TO resort to the eli
waited and surface cars.
Caught When Floor Drops.
{ Three fremen were caught in tn
sixth floor when a floor below the1
dropped and were forced upward t
!. the seventh and then to the eight
s story of the building. From belo'
d 1t seemed that rescue was impossibl
until several firemen, selling scalin
IS ladders, began to swing themselve
1t up the face Of the lettering wal
4. Climbing to a window ledge, the la,
A. der with Its great hook was drawn U
r. and swung to higher ledge, the me
ID working heroically until their enda
[e gered comrades were reached. Dow
If 4 the smoking wall the men came slo,
a. ly, almost painfully, until they wei
10 near enough to the ground to Dire
4. INTO their comrades outstretche
It arms.
ii Escape Is Marrow.
So narrow was the escape, for re
cuers as well as rescued, that the la
ders themselves were burned whe,
they hung when the firemen droppe
al from their rungs. But even the re
cue of these men was not complet
for three who went up into the bull
q ing failed to return. The other thre
d disappeared in the mass of falling CO
is crete and twisted steel beams.
" is their bodies that sorrowful COZ
of rades were searching for among IL
e. smoking ruins Saturday morning.
v. addition to the missing score
D. more fremen were hurt, their injuri,
n. ranging from painful bruises to hur
d. which may prove fatal.