The Oskaloosa herald., 1912-05-16
DIES MONIES HAS
A $4,000 FIRE
Strikes Ware House and
Causes Big Blaze.
ALBA MERCHANT LOSES FOOT
Dubuque to be Rendezvous Of 1000
Regulars For Week-New Coal
Field Found Near Woodward
Mistakes Acid for Medicine.


Des Moines, Navy 11.-Special: A
bolt of lightning which struck the
four-story building at Sixth and Wag.
ner streets last night about $40
O'Clock, set fire to the structure and
| caused one of the biggest fires Des
Moines has had for years. The total
loss is estimated at $135,000. The
building was occupied by the s. David.
son & Bros. as furniture warehouse
and the Emerson Birmingham com.
pany, agricultural implements. David
son Bros. occupied the third and
fourth floors, and the carriage com.
pany occupied the second floor On
the ground floor was the cabinet max.
ers' department, and here were stored
| fifty gallons of gasoline ,turpentine and
oils. The building was owned by r.
NJ. Hubbell Son & Co. The building
is total loss. The walls on the south
side are in ruins and the interior of
the building is nothing but wreckage.
| The floors burned through and fell.
Poor water pressure greatly handi-
capped the work of the department.
The Storm.
A heavy drenching rain, approach
ing a cloudburst in the volume of the
downpour, struck Des Moines at 500
o'clock last night. The downtown
business section streets were flooded,
water filing the streets from curb to
curb, and in many cases overlooking
the sidewalk and flooding Easements
all over the downtown district. Thous.
ands of dollars worth of damage was
done by the overlooking of Easements.
The downpour was the heaviest that
! ing to the weather bureau men. One.
half inch of rain fell the first five
minutes, according to their figures
and during the forty-five minutes when
the rain was the heaviest, 2.1S inches
of water fell. The weather bureau
gives the precipitation up until 700
o clock this morning as 3.63-100 inches
and still raining. The cloudburst ex.
tended from here toward the north
west as far as Rockwell City. At
Ames the rain was fairly heavy, but
not unusual At Indianola, nineteen
miles south, there was but light rain
fall, and at Grinnell, fifty-five miles
east there was no rain at all
The basement of The Register and
Leader building was flooded with two
feet OF water and the big press was
put out of commission when the mo:
tors were flooded. Other downtown
business houses, whose Easements
were flooded include C. C. Taft Dav.
idsOns Fruit and Candy company,
! Crane company, Wholesale plumbing,
and McCurnin's Drug company. Wal
ker Shoe company, Irwin drug store
White shoe store, Reed Hurlbut drug
store, Ray building, Second and Wal
nut. wall weakened by water and fell;
Citizens National Bank, Charles
Bros, grocery store About five
feet OF water in the basement OF the
Des Moines Electric company put all
of the lights in Highland Park and all
city lighting service out of commits
sion for a few hours. The water
| flooded the auxiliary machinery of the
company and rendered service impos.
sible
At two o'clock this afternoon the
rain that had fallen in the past twenty
hours was 12-10O inches.
Des Moines, May 11.-Special: Re-
ports of damage from the cloudbursts
in neighboring towns continue to come
in this afternoon. At Mitchellville
the local telegraph service was Grip
pied and toll lines down to Atlantic,
Colfax and Prairie City. The interur-
ban railroad to Colfax was held up by
the tearing down of power wires. Sew
eral head of cattle owned by John
Harding, south of Carlyle, were killed
by lightning.