John G.
Myers Department Store
Building Collapse
Albany, New York
August 8, 1905
Albany, Aug. 9. - -Thirteen are known
to be dead, twenty-seven injured and in the
hospitals, and more than forty are missing, as a
result of the collapse of the
John G. Myers
department store North Pearl street, yesterday.
All night long scores of men worked like
beavers upon the ruins and the number will be
reinforced today. That a score or more
bodies still remain beneath the wreckage seems a
certainty.
The list of dead this morning was as follows:
Miss
Minnie K. Bullman, 168 Livingston Avenue
Miss
Anna Cashman, 62 Walter street
Michael J. Fitzgerald, 542 North Pearl street
Frank
P. Leonard, 101 Myrtle avenue
Miss
Mary McAvoy, 162 Orange street
John
F. Powers, cash boy, 29 Bassett street
Miss
Alice L. Sharp, 57 Elisabeth street
Miss
Theresa Spannbauer, 243 Sherman street
Miss
Etta L. Sprinks, 163 Lancaster street,
saleswoman
Anna
Whitbeck, 55 Irving street
Miss
Grace B. Ebner, 96 Lexington avenue
Miss
Helen Malone, 127 Green street
Winifred Kelly, 214 Hamilton street
The injured in various hospitals are reported
as doing well. One death has occurred in the
hospitals among the victims taken from the
building alive. Miss Mary McAvoy, who was
taken from the wreck at 3:15 yesterday afternoon
died at St. Peters Hospital at 12:20 o'clock
this morning.
LIST OF THE INJURED. The injured
at the hospitals are:
St.
Peters Hospital --
Miss
Ella Donohue, fractured spine; may live;
Mrs.
Wilson Borst, shopper, bruised and injured
internally, condition serious;
Alice
Burns, badly bruised;
Dudley Weaver, cut on the head;
Mrs.
Stafford, badly bruised and cut;
Lewis
H. Mergenthaler, Rensselaer, eye injured; limbs
bruised, sprained ankle;
Miss
Lillian Spatz, head cut and arms bruised;
Miss
Lena Denzinger, badly bruised;
Miss
Albina Cloutier, head badly cut and bruised;
Mrs.
Richard W. Brass, head cut and bruised;
John
Fisher, bruised and cut on the head;
Harry
Morris, bruised and cut.
At
Albany Hospital --
Hector Fleming, numerous bruises;
Miss
Mary Benson, cut and suffering from shock;
Miss
Nellie Burns, bruised;
Robert M. Chalmers, bruised, cut and suffering
from shock;
Charles Dottman, bruises;
George Diller
At
Homeopathic Hospital - -
Henry
Snyder, stunned;
J.
Griffin, hand cut;
Howard Smith, head and hand cut;
Samuel Frazier,
hands cut and face cut;
William Devlin
The property loss is estimated at a quarter
of a million dollars. The fact that fire
did not break out has made it possible to save
considerable of the stock. That the
accident occurred at an early hour was also
fortunate, for had it occurred an hour or two
later the store would have been thronged with
buyers and in that case the loss of life would
have been much greater.
The only disaster in this city at all
comparable with the present one in the memory of
those now living, was in the
Delevan House fire which occurred December
30, 1894. In this calamity nineteen
persons were burned to death.
CAUSE OF DISASTER. The cause of
the disaster seems to have been the giving away
of a brick pier on which rested an iron column
supporting one of the centre walls of the
building, the collapse being due to an
excavation made beneath a pier for a foundation
for which new work forming part of extensive
improvements was to rest. When the pier
and column gave way the wall fell, and with it
the floors and roof of the whole central portion
of the building back of the elevator.
The heroism in the work of rescue and prompt
aid to the injured was noteworthy.
Physicians by the score, clergymen, priests,
nurses from the hospitals, firemen, policemen
and citizens, with contractors, workmen and
their laborers were early on the scene and vied
with each other in work, in utter disregard of
the danger which threatened. The women
clerks could not remove the beams and girders,
but they did minister tenderly to heir
injured co-workers, and readily transformed
themselves into impromptu nurses.
Crews from the railroads reinforced the
workers in clearing away the rubbish in order to
reach the bodies. All night long they
toiled occasionally bringing to light the body
of a victim.
Trenton Times, Trenton, NJ 9 Aug 1905
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