Louisville, Kentucky Fire
December 9, 1891
Many Persons Burned to Death.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dec. 9. – While the firemen
were raking away the ruins of the
Boone Paper
company at 2:34 o’clock this morning, there came
the sound of a terrific explosion in the
building on the east of them. That was the
Banberger, Strong
& Co. building, four stories high. On the
instant flames broke from every floor and shot
through the roof. Fire must have been
smouldering [sic] for several hours in the
cellar, and when each of the four stories had
become filled with heated air and smoke, an
explosion followed and the building was one mass
of flames.
Before the fire could be extinguished, the
wholesale boot and shoe house of
Bamberger, Strong
& Co., Messrs.
Wilson & Co., furnishing goods and
notions, Willer,
Woolfolk & Payne, boots and shoes,
and Jo Johnanbocke
& Sons, had been consumed.
The losses and insurance are as follows:
Bamburg,
[sic] Strong & Co., loss $124,000; insurance
$100,000. Bliss, Wilson
& Co., loss $50,000; insurance $40,000.
Willer, Woolfolk &
Payne, loss $75,000; insurance,
unknown. Johnanbocke
& Sons, loss $40,000; insurance $35,000.
It was with great difficulty that the firemen
prevented the flames from spreading further. A
number of people were sleeping in the upper
rooms of the buildings but all escaped. One
fireman is missing and he may have been crushed
by a falling wall.
Late information shows that a number of firemen,
all hook and ladder men, were caught until the
falling wall of
Bamburger, Strong & Co.’s building.
Fire chief Hughes and Captain Weatherford were
injured, four dead firemen lay under the walls
and four others are badly hurt. The dead firemen
are: WILLIAM L. MOORE,
WILLIAM DAVID, SOL BAKER and
TONY SCHLICHT.
At 8 o’clock another fatal fire was raging in
F. A. Menne
& Co.’s wholesale candy and fancy grocery house,
a square above the
Boone Paper Co. building. The origin
of the fire is a mystery.
Forty girls were at work wrapping candy on
the fourth floor and all were not able to
escape. The fire was out at 11 o’clock and then
the work of taking out the bodies began. The
bodies of six girls have already been taken out
burned beyond identification.
G. T. Menne,
brother of the senior member of the firm, is
supposed to have burned to death, and the
firemen think at least five other girls will be
found as soon as the hot embers will permit a
thorough search.
The fire cut off escape by the stairway
leading from the fourth floor where the girls
were at work. Many jumped from the windows to a
second story projection and escaped with broken
limbs and bruised bodies. Others got out unhurt.
The loss on Menne
& Co.’s building and stock is placed at $75,000
and the total loss will be nearly three quarters
of a million. The flames were stopped at
George W. Wicks
& Co.’s cotton house.
The bodies of the girls were removed as soon
as possible to the nearest undertaking
establishment. Two of the girls have just been
identified as MARY
WELSH, of 204 Fourth street and
AMELIE DICKEY.
REVISED LIST OF THE DEAD.
At 1 o’clock the body of
CHARLES KEMMEL,
the partner in the firm, was reached at the
candy factory, and a little later two bodies
supposed to be those of
CLARA ROUCH and
WILLIAM HULSEHERMER. This leaves
three more supposed to be in the ruins at that
point.
The dead recovered at
Menne & Co.’s are:
LULU KERN, CARRY
LOCKHARDT, BARBARRA BELL, AMANDA DICKEY, WILLIAM
HULSEMEIR, CHARLES KIMMEL and
CLARA ROUCHE.
Missing and certainly dead at the
Coon paper
company’s are Tom
Moore, Same Baker, Will Davis, Ton Schlick
and all of No. 1 Hook and Ladder company.
Ida Bell Parker, James
Mundweiler and Thomas Buckholser, who
worked at Mennes
& Co’s are also missing this afternoon, but
their relatives have not been heard from
to-night.
Injured: Katie
McGarvey, leg broken and internal
injuries; Theresa
Holthaus, head bruised;
Edward Ininger,
body bruised; Lillie
Greenwald, slightly bruised;
Major Hughes, seriously cut about the
head; James Nutall,
engineer of the “fives”; internal
injuries and injured about the hips and spine;
Pat Sheehy, ladder man No. 1 hook,
badly cut about wrist and arm;
Allen Grimes,
candy-maker, internal injuries;
Henry Weatherford, fireman, sprained
wrist.
Fire Chief Hughes
has not concussion of the brain, although he was
unconscious for several hours after he was hurt.
The report that
Frank Mennes was caught in the ruins
arose from the loss of
Jimmell, a partner of Mennes.
How the fire originated is still unknown in
both cases.
Losses $750,000, with an insurance of
$450,000.
The Aspen Weekly, Aspen, CO 12 Dec 1891
Transcribed by
Jenni Lanham. Thank you,
Jenni!
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