El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-06-13

hasty belief. But the Ole. fellows opln-
don was ruthlessIy shattered that same
night
The Night of the 'Big Rnin-r
''On that night of the 9Th Of July,
A D.. 1881, there was an unusually
large assemblage IN the lobby and
dining hall of the old Grand Central
hotel, which was run by John Dougher,
and which stood between the site Of
the present Herald bdilding and the
Mills building, now oeing eXcavated
for the new plaza block. The ellie OF
the town were there TO greet the new
" arrived postmistr-ss, Mrs Porter,
who with her family had just come all
the way from Washington with the
appointment in her pocket While the
hungry guests were seated around the
supper tables, eating their ham and
eggs and hot cakes with coffee, which
by the way was the invariable menu
of those old FL Paso hotel days for
breakfast sdinner and supper, the rain
came The guests were suddenly ST
fenced in the revelry of the banquet
as they slipped their dessert Of FL Paso
beans, about half past eight o'clock 1t
was an unearthly noise, a commingling
of boomings of cannons, and roaring
of some mighty cyclone. The cry
started that the old adobe hotel was
falling down and all started to run for
t+reir lives. The Californians shrieked:
It's an earthquake and the Mis-.
sourians and Kansans shrieked: It's
g cyclone
Hotel Begins to Fall.
"a panic ensued, women cried and
tainted away and ore stampeded for
the front door, topping over tables
and chairs in the grand rush TO get
out into the open in the plaza Boom,
boom overhead was the terrifying
sound as the adobe walls of the upper
story as yet unroofed and uncom-
pleted, fell one by one on the old rooI
below. covering the Old lobby and the
dining room. These dull. thud-hke
sounds were accompanied by startling
claps of real thunder, and all accom-
named with the fearful roar OF
mighty wind When We flew into no
neer plaza ii was inky blackness, and
a gale of seething foam, mist, mud ana
water beat into atoms by the terrific
gale. was visible with every flash OF
lightning. The monster whatever II
was. seethed Kissed, shrieked- and
roared like 10000 demons Suddenly
crash was heard across the plaza,
where the Lobby saloon now stands, as
down fell Lucas's wooden STRUCTURE
filled with tinware, ana the bang, ciang
Of pots cans and all kinds OF tlnWare
ratified through the I.aZa- Surely we
thought the end of the world has
come Then as suddsnly as it came,
the storm subsidized into a. gentle rain
Wall of Water Comes Down.
But the horror of the night was not
ended yet. For suddenly down North
Oregon street rushed a mighty flood
of water, roaring like Niagara and
majestically sweeping everything in
its path. dredging a deep channel
through San Jacinto plaza, eight feet
deep and 20 feet wide, finally covering
the whole park with a body Of moving
water four feet deep. Rushing through
the narrow street between the present
site.of the Sheldon and the Mills build
ings the rapid delbge poured from
the upper plaza down into the present
Pioneer plaza, carrying on its bosom
all kinds of material. Telegraph poles,
railroad ties and lumber shot past the
old corner like arrows on their way
down Ell Paso street. the cause Of this
deluge was a giant cloudburst that
had dropped and spent its watery bur
den somewhere on the watershed be-
tween Mount Franklin and the head OF
Oregon street canyon
Grove washed Up.
'The sights around town the next
morning baffied description. FL Paso,
= San Antonio and Overland streets were
the canals Of midtown Venice. Soon
all the boys were padding RATS, made
of stray boards, through the main
thoroughfares. Among the strange flot-