Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1919-05-24
CEDAR RAPIDS REsuMIN0 6usl.
NESS AND REPAIRING ExPLo.
SION DAMAGE.
ACRES or DEBRIS LITTER
DOUGLAS PLANT SITE
Soldiers Hold Back Crowds Which
Floeked TO City From Adjacent
Observation-Disclosures Can Give No
Explanation - cissrss and Starch
Dust Most General Theory.

Cedar Rapirs. May 24-Cedar Rapids
gradually Is recovering from the shell
shock daze caused by the disasterous
explosion Thursday nlsht in the Doug
las starch works.
The exact number of dead probably
never will he known.
Turnout the day ambulances car
ried bodies and fragments OF bodies
from the ruins. In several instances
identification was only partial owing
to frightful designation.
Searchers were hampered in theiI
work by the seething mass of semi
molten material
The two blocks OF the foundry site
form mountain OF tangled debris
Towering l50 feet above this havoc
like ghostly sent!nels are two con
crete stacks, one perfectly erect its
twin slightly inclined.
A Gordon OF soldiers with loaded
rifles and bayonets holds back the
crowds that surge to the scene from
neighboring towns.
Sometimes frenzied relatives try "a
break thru the khaki line. But they
are sternly repressed- All about the
ruins of the factory are shattered
homes.
Windows Boarded Up.
On the business streets store fronts
are either boarded up or stretched
across with poultry wire. Street
cleaning gangs carried off the debris
in carloads.
Everywhere the question is asked,
What caused it"
Nobody knows.
"Clgarets- said Frank Snoaies. a
former ernploye. Il knew 1t would
come That starch is like gunpow-
der No person would disavow this
theory.
C. W. McCaney, night superin-
tendent at the plant. lays swathed in
5aadages IL 81. Luke's hospital HIS
arm is bolted to board that rests at
an angle across his chest. Only the tip
of yellow blistered nose and his
teeth show thru the game.
MecalIey in Dare.
"McCalley ought to know" said Dr..
John Hamilton. who had Just finished
doing him up.
Don't ask me" nnoaned the pa
tient. All l know was that / was
starting cut on my regular Inspection
and was just passing from the engine
house to the boiler room and l landed
in cement pit under a pile OF bricks
with fire all around. I first thought a
live steam pipe had burst, but it may
have been the dry starch. Some fire.
men dug me out
4 dozen men similarly swathed &C.
cupied the ward with McCailey. Said
Ward Matthews. who had just escaped
the horrors Of war and had gone to
work in the factory day after his
discharge week ago:
4 was sitting on second-story
window sill. looking straight across
the court about twenty feet, when a
noise like million cannons went or
and fire blazed out o, the windows
opposite.
Brick Wall Caves In.
The brick wall waved like a red
blanket on a cIothesline and I went
flying with a lot of junk into a heap
outside. I've been trying TO figure
how it happened wasn't killed then
and there"
James F. Plumb one Of the man
ayers Of the company, witnessed the
explosion from a block distant.
II had just stepped out on the porch
of my home and was looking toward
the foundry when there was deafen-
ing roar. A cloud like a prodigious
balloon arose in the ara great black
= ~
1000 feet.
"A Horrible Dream"
'Tt seemed like horrible dream:
all the breath seemed to be sucked
out of my body, and / was knocked
down as IL by a sledgehammer."
Mrs. George 3. Douglas. wife Of the
president Of the company, was at the
hospitals administering to the in
jured.