From the Cupples block, south Seventh street was one mass of ruins. No
other one street met with such disastrous treatment from the hurricane. It
was simply frightful.
At least forty people were killed along this thoroughfare and the streets
immediately adjacent. House after house was totally demolished and
the wonder grows with extended investigation that the number of deaths is
not far in excess of what it now appears to be.
The Cupples block itself did not suffer materially, but the dwellings across
the street, two story ramshackle affairs, occupied by poor people, were in
a deplorable condition.
So far as known no one was killed in this block.
Naly's saloon, at 604 South Seventh street, was a total wreck. When it fell
it was full of men who had taken refuge there, and from fifteen to twenty
were unquestionably killed.
Many of them are of a character who have few friends and would not be missed.
One poor fellow has been taken out dead and ten others sorely
injured.
It is thought that others are still in the brick choked basement, and a gang
of men is busy digging into the debris.
The force of the wind was so frightful along here that the iron
trolley-supporting poles of the Southwestern Electric line are bent over
to the ground. They did not break, but bent like copper
wires.
Of course, all the telegraph poles are down, many of them snapped in twain
with the top heavy heads hanging over the street, held aloft by the wires,
which still cling to them.
this makes it a dangerous passage, and especially was this true along toward
noon, when the wind began to rise.
The poles swayed in the air, hanging over the heads of the people like the
sword of Damacles, but the excited mob which thronged the sidewalks and bulged
out over the streetcar tracks did not seem to mind it.
They juggled with death in their anxiety to view the devastation and watch
the busy scores seeking to find buried relatives or recover lost
valuables.
Hundreds walked and drove down into this section from the western part of
the city. It was a show, and as business is partially suspended,
opportunity was given many for sightseeing.
At the Vermont marble works, South Seventh street, the wreck was complete.
It was here that Harry Hess, a driver for the concern, was killed.
He was buried beneath tons of the great blocks of stone, which were
hurled about by the wind.
The most exciting and at the same time the saddest place on this frightfully
desolated street was on the southeast corner of Rutger street. Here
had stood the three story brick saloon and boarding house of Fred
Mockenheimer.
It was occupied by twenty families, the full number of souls reaching at
least calculation eighty.
When the strom struck it went up like a dry puff ball, burying dozens. No
one knows how many dead its ruined brick and mortar contain. At 11
o'clock, 11 persons had been taken out dead, and more than a dozen more or
less injured.
At 12 o'clock the body of a gray-haired woman was discovered and removed,
but her name could not be learned.
A company of firemen was assigned to the work of rescue, and kept at it manfully.
They were assisted by relatives of those who were supposed to be beneath
the debris.
Henry Plauchek was there hunting for his father. He was pale and sick,
but he kept at it. His father, William, had been in the saloon, he
said, when the building fell.
The crowd about the corner was enormous and hard to handle. The curious throng
pushed in over the broken bricks and shattered timbers, hemming in the rescue
corps and taking desperate chances of breaking their own legs. Even
the policemen's clubs could not keep them back.
Across the street on the southwest corner the wreck was as bad, but the number
of people in the building was not so large. Several dead bodies and
a half dozen sorely wounded have been removed, and others are still thought
to be there.
One block below this the house of the Settigs (?) was crashed in and Mr.
August Settig and his wife badly hurt.
The saloon of A. Graf & Co., on South Seventh street, was totally
ruined.
Mrs. Rux(?) and her daughter Tinfe and her brother John Roeffeiling were
crushed to death in their home.
Mrs. Clara Frueseke and her two daughters, Stella and Edna, at 1335 South
Seventh street, were mashed out of shape by the fall of their
home.
Fred Steltman, Mrs. Schmidt, Millie and Harry Killian and their mother were
dangerously hurt and James Killian, the father, was killed at 1301 South
Seventh street.
So it ran on down this ill-starred street. It seems as though the wind
had a particular spite against it, for where it did not bear death on its
bosom it carried desolation. Hundreds on this street alone have been
rendered homeless and the suffering will be terrible.
The Soulard market was blown to pieces killing George Hubert with the falling
bricks and another man whose name has not been learned.
The Church of the Annunciation, at Sixth and Hickory, lost its steeple and
was otherwise badly damaged. Serg't. Muller of the Soulard street station
said that every church in the second police district was either totally
demolished or so badly damaged that they could not be used with safety for
days to come.
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