Detroit, Michigan
Wonderland Theatre Building Roof Collapse
November 1898
SLAIN BY A FALLING ROOF
Its Collapse on a New Theatre In Detroit Buries
Workmen.
OVER HALF A SCORE KILLED.
Nearly Twenty Men Are Injured – The Roof Fell
Without Warning and Buried the Workmen Beneath
the Ruins – Not a Man Escaped Unwounded – The
Building Was Uncompleted.
DETROIT, Mich. (Special). -- The new five-story
Wonderland Theatre Building is now in ruins, and
fifteen lives have been sacrificed by an
appalling accident, which occurred therein
Saturday afternoon.
Shortly before 2 o'clock, while some
thirty-five men were at work in various parts of
the unfinished theatre, the roof fell in without
a second's warning. Nearly every workman was
carried down into the theatre pit, the top
gallery was crushed down upon the lower gallery,
forming a slope, down which slid broken steel
girders, planks, timbers, brick and a great
quantity of cement from the roof, and carrying
along a struggling mass of men into the pit
below. Very few of the workmen escaped injury.
The front wall of the building remained intact,
but the east wall bulged and threatened to fall.
Some of the dead are:
JOHN CRESCELSKI, laborer; JAMES GEGERACHKO,
laborer; AUGUST JANUSCHOWASKI, laborer;
CORNELIUS McCARRON, lather; THEODORE MARTENS,
laborer; AUGUST SALLUCH, laborer; MARTIN SHAFER,
painter; GEORGE W. WHITE, tinner; PETER CONNORS,
lather; JACOB LOWEN, metal polisher; FRANK WOLFE
and ______ BETTS, cornice makers, and O. MULLEN.
Nearly a score of workingmen were injured,
and out of this number two are considered as
unlikely to recover.
The cause of the catastrophe seems to have
been too much weight on the roof and faulty
steel beams used in its construction. The top of
the roof was of cement about eight inches thick,
and many builders lean to the opinion that his
was too heavy for the supporting steel work.
Others claim that the fault lies in the steel
work, which, they allege, was of poor quality.
Several of the beams snapped off sharp, instead
of bending.
The walls, steel work and roof were the only
completed portions of the Wonderland, without
floors or interior finish. The property is owned
by PATRICK WIGGINS, partner of JAMES H. MOORE in
his combined theatre and museum enterprises.
The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1898-11-11
Submitted & transcribed by Stu
Beitler Thank you,
Stu!
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