The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1911-03-31
FIRE CLAIMS $50 LIVES
VICTIMS CRUSHED BY JUMPING,
SMOTRERED AND CREMATED.
HAD NO MEANS OF ESCAPE
Girls Jump From Eighth, Ninth and
Tenth Floors to Pavement.
Employers Escape.

New York-More than $50 persons, S
nine-tenths of them girls from the east 6
side, were crushed to death on the 5
pavements, smothered by smoke or
shriveled to a crisp in the worst flre :
New York has known since the steam ,
ship General Slocum was burned to
the waters edge off North Brothers
Island in 1904.
Nearly all, if not all, of the victims
we're employed by the Triangle Waist
Company on the eight, ninth and TENN
floors of a ten-story loft building at
No. % Washington Place, on the west
ern edge of the downtown wholesale
clothing. fur and millinery district
| The partners of the firm, Isaac Har'
ris and Max Blanck, escaped unscaIn'
y ed from the office on the tenth hoor,
carving with them over an ADJOINING
:. roof Blancks two young daughters ana
- governess. There was not an out
\, side fire escape on the building.
d, How the fire started will perhaps
O. never be known. A corner on the
IA eighth floor was its point OF origin anu
~. the three upper floors only were swept
&c, On the ninth floor fifty bodies were
N found, sixty-three or more persons
en- were crushed to death by jumping ana
no more than thirty clogged the elevator
OF shafts The loss to property Will not
, ,n exceed 100000. :.
~ ~ Pedestrians going home through
ter Washington place to Washington
the Square at 4:50 o'clock were scaC'e!el
my nv the whizz of something rushlhS
to through the air before them; tner'
the was horrible thud on the paVemen
IL and a body flattened on the flags
o Rain of Flesh and Blood
raw "Dont lump; don't jump yelled III
she crowd, but the girls had no alternatiN'
,dcd Two pressure of the maddened nu'
re- drods behind them and the urging
r NV their own fears were too strong l LIZ
! H. HOGAN to fall to the sidewalk IN d 1t
,ner- rible rain of flesh and Dloou'
Mrs. Eo,,r alarms we're rung within
ham toon minutes, Before the engines cou
resnond, before the nets coulu g
nave stretched or the ladders raised Il
page oir1c had fallen from the eighth
: for Hinth floors so heavily that they ORC
, too tbrorob the very streets into
only vaults below. III al no" hoa done
, for ont. in half an hour it hao uon0
worst Probably the death llS'
full in twenty minutes.
,.n The building stands on corner '
'SS on exnosure on two Streets puV
XIV fro escape was in the Inter
onaning on light and air snalV'
:, 81, there we're seven exits
single fire escape, two ifelene " =,
tore, at the rear, two passenger e.
toro in front and two stalr"aSs'
- If them proved almost useless
:ESl onoc+icallv all who escaped e
u climbed through the TOOL anu ~
p led thence to the building occuple
s. tho American Book Company a'
49, or fed in the first rush LOT
nasora the crush and the smoke
too thick. ron ~
rics. Seven hundred persons ooo VI
ire women, were employed by the
many. They sat in rows al 'nen
- b ing machines, the tables before
L , niIed with flimsy cloth, the moor DC,
- ed with lint, the air itselt Fun ars
g ing infammable dust. Inc nee nl1
SAM Al it,, a. eame was almost an explosl.
growth: ~ GATORS died in their chairs, tnel
III G sss scared by inhaling flames ot haft
nng crowded into the elevator shal.
- the cars had made tne.r las; - y. .,
- 9TH we're pushed off the lna'
70 name interior fire escape. ,
1,eea ,rS IN such horrible stream
remedy bodies overflow from the ne WI. %,nf u,
coLpsl tpe fire net stretched by the Il,
- nay to arrive, were soon ;. s 90
yeas sa Ds{ s 9sf BURSTING ses'1s
alter the bodies ,s bsDs on n tsp"Hs a
dust, So. VIVA. no longer support them
The Aftermath.