East St. Louis Journal, Friday, May 29, 1896:
As far as the eye can reach up and down the river, death and desolation,
wreck and ruin, range from one end of town to the other.
Scarcely a house remains standing in sight of the wind-distorted bridge of
iron and steel, which it was thought could withstand the most furious assaults
of the elements for generations.
On every side lay the bodies of dead horses, overturned freight cars, dismantled
home with blear-eyed, dazed with sorrowful human beings groping about, sobbing
and moaning in the utter paralysis of thought.
They knew not what to do and wandered aimlessly about, charmed by the very
horror of the scene.
On either side of the broadway the railroad yards were torn into a horrible
burlesque on chaos. Great, heavy freight cars had been lifted from
the tracks in their entirety and hurled yards away, plunging down embankments
and landing bottom side up i the morasses and marshes of the island.
Sometimes the trucks had remained on the track, the bodies being literally
torn from them and hurled in indiscriminate confusion hither and thither.
Mixed with this great mass of railroad debris were the former houses of people
who had lived down around this part of town.
Parts of different houses were thrown together, seeming more like the ruin
of one home rather than an aggregation of different firesides.
The long low line of frame houses that stood to the right of the bridge where
the bridge trolley met the local street cars is gone. Not even the wreckage
is in sight. The ground is almost swept clean.
Further on a brick house stands by the roadway. Part of the roof is
gone. The front wall of the second story has been blown out and there
can be seen the whole contents of the room. By one of those freaks
of the storm the contents of the bedroom have been untouched. With
the roof and front wall gone the pictures even are still hanging on the walls.
A lamp stands on the little center table and the bed, but for the black
stains of mud and water, stands still untouched, in perfect order.
Across the street from this house was a white horse with a great bloody stain
on his side. His team mule is twenty yards beyond, both dead. The
wagon they were hauling, a great heavy dary, was hurled upside down, with
its wheels twisted off and splintered against an iron pier of the big
bridge.
Looking far off to the right the ruins of the East St. Louis Cold Storage
Co. loom up, and nearer to the water the shattered remnants of the Kehlor
mills.
By the water's edge are the battered steamboats, thrown high and dry upon
the shore, deserted now, all save the City of Quincy. A bedraggled
horse could be seen standing weakly on the slanting deck, with head down
and tail blown away by the wind...a miserable picture.
A little closer to the bridge a tremendous barge, loaded with iron, is lying
half on its side, the end nearest the water half torn away.
At the left the relay depot still looms up intact, but the devastation about
it is unspeakable.
The Vandalia and Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and other freight depots
are wiped from the face of the earth. A smoldering mass of charred
ruins shows where the Hetzel mills once stood.
The Tremont and the Mantel houses are totally demolished, the latter having
been blown into Cahokia creek.
Mrs. Hayes, the wife of the proprietor of the Tremont house was killed and
her son desperately injured. The proprietor escaped. Three others are
supposed to be now in the ruins, and men can be seen working to recover the
bodies.
No one is supposed to have been killed in the Mantell house.
Judge Foutz, of Vandalia, Ill., a special judge in the aqueduct ----- was
in this hotel and was fatally injured.
Martell was reported dead, but later turned up alive.
Death in the Vandalia freight depot was rampant. Cashier Frank McCormick,
Yardmaster Joe Franks and Albert Valkman are known to be dead. Frank
Bland and Dan Kelly were reported to be dead, but later it was found that
they were only injured.
Cashier Fout, of the Illinois Central was killed in the crash which carried
away the freight depot of that company.
When the storm came up Mayor Bader was in the city hall. He ran for
the police station, but was thrown down an embankment and stunned. He
was rescued from a lot of debris by Detective Hickey and later recovered
enough to help with the rescue work.
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