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Show J. MUCH INTEREST HERE. i Crowds Thronged Before Herald Bul-I Bul-I letin Boards, j Intense interest in the Winterquar-j Winterquar-j ters horro.- was manifest threiughout ! the city from the time the first bulletin arrived. All day long people thronged the sidewalk in front of The Herald office, intent on learning more details of the dreadful affair. The interest is easily accounted for when the fact that many Salt Lakers have friends or relatives lying among the dead and injured in-jured is taken into consideration, and furthermore it is the most terrible ac cident, and incura more loess of life tnaji any in the state's history. Until after midnight anxious people thronged The Herald editorial rooms in search of information regarding this brother or that friend, but none probably prob-ably were so greatly affected as the u lie-so n boys. Fireman James F. Wilson at No 2 received the appalling news in a dispatch dis-patch from hies brother; Andrew J. iteon, who conducts a butcher shon , at Scofield, at 7 p. m. last night. It read: "Sandy and Johnny hurt and three boys killed. Come down." It is almost impossible to conceive of a whole family being lost at one stroke, yet that iis what the brief message means. All the Wilsonw were well known in this city. Two of the brothers formerly run a butcher (shop on West South Temple street, and John lived here fer years with his family. They are injured in-jured and may be numbered with the dead before this morning, while the three boys, Alexander, William and James, arc already gone. Alexander was married, being about 23 yeans old, and his brothers are aged 19 and 14 respectively. They are nephews to Fireman Wilson, "who left for the scene last night. Among the others Who bore great red circles around their eyes, and spoke in trembling voices, was David Brown, a Salt Lake Railway conductor, whose brother, Thomas Brown, is probably fatally injured. Nicoll Hood, who drove the first pick in No. 1, searched in vain for word regarding his brother Andrew, fore-I fore-I man of No. 4. and his nephew Andrew-Johnstone, Andrew-Johnstone, neither of whom were heard from until a late hour. His fears were relieved by a dispatch from his brother later in the night. It said the brother was all right. But the young man io known to be underground. under-ground. Deputy Sheriff John E. Cummock, who was in Alma. Wyo.. at the time of an explosion not unlike the one of yesterday, and who is familiar with the Winterquarters property, gives it as his opinion, a3 do a great many others recently from there, that the horror occurred oc-curred through an explosion of gas, or fire damp. A party of surveyors has been at work underground for some time past, and the theory is advanced that one of them carried an open lamp into an abandoned cave, little heeding j the danger of the flame coming in contact con-tact with the fire damp accumulated there. As soon as word of the accident reached the company's offices in the Dooly block. Superintendent W. G. Sharp left for the mine on a sDeciai train, leaving Secretary Carpenter in charge here. A crowd of anxious men lingered about the office waiting for (something authentic, but news seemed to be lacking. A man who worked in No. 4 for nine years, and quit work only last week, gives it as his opinion that the explosion explo-sion occurred through the accumulation accumula-tion of dust underground. "It is the first time in the history of the camp that ah explosion of this kind has occurred," said he. "but it might have happened at any time. The mines are full of dust all the time and men are employed whose sole business it is to wet down the accumulated piles. The state mine inspector visits there regularly, regu-larly, and the 'foreman makes it his business to see that the process of wetting wet-ting down is gone through, with at short intervals. I believe it was simply sim-ply spontaneous combustion, and it is dangerous at any time unless the dust is kept damp." No. 4 adjoins No. 1, and though there is some distance between the tunnels on the surface the two mines are connected con-nected underground. No. 4 is situated about three-quarters of a mile from Scofield, and it mines between 700 and 800 tons of coal per day. The shift that went on at 7 in the morning was in the explosion. There is no dwelling within 700 yards of the tunnel of No. 4, and it is safelv presumed that none were wrecked. There were terrific results.on the surface sur-face around the entrance of the tunnel, tun-nel, however. The stables were the nearest buildings, and in all probability probabil-ity were blown into atoms, many horses being killed. It is estimated that $20,000 will be required re-quired to renalr the damage to the company, while the additional loss resulting re-sulting from a delay in operating of a month, at least, will be great. Most of the men employed in the mine are Finlanders and English-speaking English-speaking people. A majority of the men are married. |