Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1911-10-03

/ away during the Hl6At. ~,
Below the torn dam today the valiey
for mile or more Is swept practlcaly
4 clean to bedrock and Freemans run,
the reservoir feeder, swollen by last
nights rains, Is sweeping through
new channels where the main business
portion of the town once STOOD, Cos
tello, three miles away, is proportion.
/ ately as shattered as Austin. only
! the loss of the foods momentum ana
4 the timely warnings given by telephone
ioperators who risked their lives to 90
SO, held the death list to two.
4 Goes Violently Insane.
One of the most pathetic In the long
list of tragedies Is the case Of James
Leeman, night worker, who was
asleep and did not hear the alarm
| When the water swallowed up MS
4 little home he was tossed out upon
pile of floating debris and eventually
floated to landing. mile and nall
below the village. Wounded and
bruised he made his way back only
! to f1nu that his wife and four children
had persisted. Leeman went violently
insane.
| Girl Shows Her Nerve.
Mary Blaitz, an employee In the
counting room Of the Bayless Pulp 4
Paper Co., told the reporters In the
hospital today how 1t feels to have
leg amputated with an axe. l was
busy at my books" she said, when
suddenly there lurched through the
wall one of the big pulp grinding
stones OF the mill. AS leaped aside
to avoid it the ceiling caved in and the
water followed and passed over me.
Rescuers found me later pinned be-
meath the grinding stone. They tried
to release me, but failed. The great
stone was too big to move and felt
as If l surely would die there.
"Get an axe and cut off my leg
told them. But no man would vol
unteer. Cut 1t off, pleaded. You
can stand 1t If can
II looked up and saw Joe Venarge,
friend Of mine. You do 1t, Joe, for
me- I pleaded. l was in awful pain
and nothing could be worse torture
than what I was enduring. cant
do that, Mary he said.
II asked big man back of him to
do It. He picked UP the axe. BY the
lantern light I saw the descending
glade glisten. think he chopped 1t
four or five times before they go me
loose.''
At the hospital DR.. Ashcraft said the
plucky girl would recover.
The immediate scene of the obliter-
alton of Austin covers an area three.
Fights of mile wide and one and
three-quarters miles long. This com
prised the business section and the
valley residence portion and was
bounded by Main, Ruckaber and Thorn
streets and Costello avenue crossed
by lesser thoroughfares. Nearly mile
above stood the mammoth concrete
dam Of the Bayless Paper & Pulp Co.,
600 feet long, 81 feet high and 80 feet
thick at the bottom. tapering to q
thickness Of three feet at the top.
Back Of this dam yesterday lay a
reservoir of water a mile and half
| long and an average Of thirty-five feet
deep.
| Destruction 81 Lumber Yard.
Directly in front of the dam stood
! the plant Of the Bayless company
with four main buildings. Stacked
high nearby was 100000 cords of 90
inch wood and slabs, and also por.
ton of the company's immense tim.
Der stock, totaling In the Austin valley
s 900 900 feet of hard wood and 25,.
OOOO feet of hemlock. q This was a
five-year supply, practically the large
cut Of the region. 1t was valued at
$4,000, 900.
A mill stream Freeman Run, flowed
through the town into Sinnemahonine
creek. leading to the Susquehanna
river. The town proper was smart
little place OF comfortable frame
houses, with substantial businecs
buildings along the main street, which
ran from side to side across the ra
vine The principal business buildings
| included the brick structure occupied
Jointly by the Austin bank and the
| postoffice, the department store OF A
r. Buck, the Goodyear hotel and the
| Commercial house and numerous gen
eral stores.
Five minutes after the dam burst
this stage had been swept Of its seen
cry and setting. Along the foothills
were thrown telescoped houses. AT
either end of the main street, brick
buildings acted as buffers as the TWEEN
ty-five foot wall Of water rushed to-
ward them with It's mess of debris.
Almost hill-high, the wood, steel and
brick were piled, mixture Of timber
and the contents Of stores and homes
! Wreck Of Dam Complete.
The wreck of the dam was as com
plete as. it was sudden. Two sec.
lions from top to bottom, hundred
and fifty feet wide were thrown out
bodily like gates Of a canal lock. On
either side the remaining structure be-
gan to break away Repairs last
spring had consisted Of a patch Of ce-
ment fourteen feet square. One Of the
breaks Saturday began at that patch.
| This is the last OF Austin said one
OF the old residents today. "The
iowa Is wiped out and there Is no call
for 1t to be rebuilt as there is no lum-
| Der here for the big mills to work on.
Austin Is gone"
Engineer Once Condemned Dam.
wilmington, Del, Oct. IT. Chalk
Hey IIatton, the civil engineer who de-
| signed the dam Of the Bayless Pulp
and Paper Co. at Austin, Pa, is resi-
dent Of Wilmington.
81 have not seen the dam since
January, 1910, when Mr.. Wegmann,
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