The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-18
Plucky Guard Overcome By
Flames Which Destroyed
Lucille Stockade
CARRIED TO SAFETY
BY A FELLOW GUARD
Official Clerk at Mines in Bibb County
Shows That Twenty-Six Convicts
Were Burned to Death and
One Was Shot
BY II. ID. CULLEN


at Lucille mine of the Red Feather Coal
| company Monday morning, in which q
men lost their lives, there was a man
who played the part of hero, and his
| name is Allen Thompson.
| The fire was started by three of the
men in the toilet room of the north DOR
| mitory of the prison. The other pris-
oners in this room were awakened, and
by means of long bench managed to
break out some of the window bars, and
all thus escaped to the ground. The fire
spread with great rapidity, as the entire
structure was of pine, and when the men
in the south dormitory were awakened by
the guards and told to leave the build
ing by way of the manway into the
mine they became ASnic-stricken and
rushed for the hall door, evidently hop
ing to make their escape in the excite
ment, and refused to go the way they
were instructed to CO.
Allen Thompson, who had been assist
ing in getting the other prisoners out of
the building and into the manway, which
opened directly into the building, went
into the hall and tried to open the door
and let the men out that way, but the
panic-stricken men crushed against the
other side of the door, and had damned
the bar OF the door so tight against the
large paddock that was used that Mr..
Thompson could not get the hasp of the
lock out of it's staple by the most strenu-
Gus efforts. His commands and cries to
the men inside to get back and relieve the
pressure on the door were unheeded, and
he remained in the hall trying to unlock
the door until overcome by the smoke.
ard he was rescued from certain death
by Munro Harris, who caught him as he
fell and carried him to safety.
Injured Doing Well
Dr.. j. f. Alexander, the company ply
scan, was one of the first men on the
ground, and his report of conditions there
is that all the men who were injured
or shot have been attended to, and are
doing we'll, although some of them are
very severely burned. DR.. e. M. Fuqua
has been hard at work with these men,
and has done all that is possible for their
comfort,
over the commissary, the door to which
might have escaped If they had not be-
come panic-stricken. Two white prison
ers who were sleeping in the storeroom
over the commissary, the door to which
was not unlocked, escaped by keeping
their heads. With a piece of iron they
pried up plank of the floor and dropped
down into the commissary below, and
thence ran to the outside.
Burial of the Dead
The dead have all been buried at the
convict cemetery near the stockade.
There is law providing that their fam
lilies can have their bodies on demand if
they will pay the expenses. DR.. Alexan-
der has had entire charge of this end of
the situation. He speaks highly of the
heroism of Thompson and others of the
guards who tried their best to get the
panic-stricken men oM of the building
and into the manway
In the first reports of the fire at Lucille
the statement was made that the opening
to the mine slope was within the stock
ade, but this was a mistake The OPEN
ing of the slope is across the railroad
from the stockade, but the manway opens
within the stockade. 1t was into this that
the convicts were driven.
All the dead men are negroe. There
were only two or three white men in the
prison and these al ESCAPED uninjured.
Allen Thompson, who tried to open the
hall door of the south dormitory was
night hall guard.
The latest count shows 26 men burned
to death, one man shot dead, 20 men
burned and in hospital, two men shot and
in hospital.