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Show DISASTROUS FIRE DESTROYS MISSOURI ATHLETIC CLUB .Six Known Dead, 27 Unaccounted For and 29 Injured in Conflagration Con-flagration in St. Louis Seven-story Building Still Burning Burn-ing Firemen Unable to Search Ruins for Missing j Bodies Fire Due to Explosion on Third Floor. ; UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN DISCOVERS BLAZE if Clerk and Telephone Operator Do Quick Work in Turning in Alarms and Awakening Guests Men Jump From Win-! Win-! dows in Night Clothing, Others Cling to Window : - Sills S ome Drop to Adjoining Roofs v Heroism Almost Superhuman, Dis- 't played by Firemen. j- 1j St. Louis, Mo., March 9. Between thirty and thirty-five dead was the ;! estimate made this afternoon by offi- : cers of the Missouri Athletic club, as 5 to the number who perished in the ' fire that destroyed the club building here today. Six bodies are in the i morgue. The bodies of the twenty- five or thirty unaccounted for are be j. lleved to be In the ruins. i Walter Fritsch, chairman of the ; board of directors of the club, said !J ? that after a thorough checking of the bj names of those registered at the club 15 ,t laBt night, he thought 35 were dead. .? Ed. Born Mueller, secretary of the i ? club, said he thought at least 33 per- I J ished. He said about 100 guests I . were rcgistored at the club for the Ijj i In the middle of this afternoon. im I smoke still was pouring from the base- J I ment and first floor Windows. 4 j night. 5 ' i St. Louis, Mo.. March 9 Six are l known to be dead, twenty-six or twen- ty-soven are unaccounted for, and It 5 5 j Is feared have perished, and about 1 ! twenty-nine arc injured as a result I : of a fire that destroyed the seven-I seven-I ; story building occupied by the Mis- I ? ; souri Athletic club today,, The loss f is estimated at more than $350,000. j' Tho fire, which broke out about 2 ; o'clock this morning, was still burn s' ' lng at noon, and "Fire Chief Swing- ft : ley said it would be unsafe to send jj ' any one into the ruins to search for ;, the missing until tonight or tomor-.t" tomor-.t" . row. The building was owned by I the Boatmen's bank, who occupied part of the first floor. The bank i opened temporary quarters this morn- i ing In a building four blocks away. , ' In the vaults of the burned building, bank officials said, are $1.3-19,000 in ;f currency and $27,000 In coin. Thia A money, It Is believed, is Intact. j : Insurance Covers Loss. j : The building was fully covered by insurance. The loss to adjoining ) buildings is estimated at $10,000. Uncertainty as to the number of I' men in the building when the fire broke out made it difficult to deter-I deter-I miue the exact number of missing. ? Jack Reisinger, night clerk at the j club, said forty-five club members 1 had- rooms there and that the regis- I tration of guests brought the total number at the club for the night at 75. Whether all of the regular guests '., -were In their rooms when tho fire broke out is not known. The cause '; of the fire is not known. Assistant Fire Chief Tucker Bald J he found the floor about the desk of , ; 1 tho clerk caved in, but that an ad joining part of the floor seemed to r have been blown upward, indicating I that the fire "was due to an explosion. ;1 A flroman who climbed a fire escapo "ij ; of the building six hours after the flro was discovered found the blaze still burning on the fifth and seventh floors and the whole interior caved In. Fire Starts in Dining Room. The fire Is believed to have started on the third floor of the building, , which was occupied by the dining room. On this floor one man was found dead. The two others known to be dead, jumped from a sixth story !' wiudow. The fire was discovered by an unidentified uni-dentified woman who was waiting with her escort for a taxicab. Looking Look-ing out of the window of the club i houBe, she saw the reflection of tho flames in a plate glass window across the street. -i Rushing to the clerk of the Mis- t souri Athletic club, she cried: Vj "Fire!" Quick Work of Operator, f The clerk, Jack Reisinger, and the night telephone operator. Norman Roe, began awakening the guests. Roe rang the telephones in 98 sleeping sleep-ing rooms. Meanwhile a fire alarm i ; had been 'turned in, presumably by i J the night watchman of the Boatmen's L bank. This watchman, Charles Bau- ) mann, was coming up stairs from tho basement when he saw the reflection j of tho flames on the walls and cell- r, ing of the bank. Additional alarms were sounded and apparatus was rushed to the scene from all parts of the city. When the firemen arrived men i were jumping from windows in their t ',' night clothing, others were clinging 3 to the window sills, around which smoke was pouring, and others were climbing down the fire escapes. Some , ; were making ropes out of sheets, i preparatory to lowering themselves from the windows. Flames Cut Off. i , Flames bursting through third story windows cut off the guests from from the fire eBcape on the L : Fourth streot side. Streams of wa- S : ter were turned on the fire escape at 1 the third floor and as firemen called ; out encouraging words, several per- . I sons descended through tho streams i to safety. After the fire had been burning an j JT hour, the wall on the Fourth street I c I side collapsed from the fourth floor I up. Firemen fell back to the wall of a building at the opposite side of the street and thus escaped tho falling bricks. One fireman, however, was struck by a brick. His leg was broken. brok-en. Assistant Fire Chief Rucker said he heard three explosions as he reached the burning building. At first the theory was advanced that the explosions ex-plosions were the work of safe blowers blow-ers who had tried to rob tho bank. Later, it was suggested that what seemed to be the sound of explosions was the dropping of elevators to the basement. Missing Guests. James Riley, 55, a guest at the club. The missing follow: James McGInnis, buyer for large St, Louis department store. Allen Dow, buyer for large St. Louis department store. Bert Crouch, sales manager Western West-ern Electric company, St. Louis. Allen Hancock, typewriter salesman. William E. Becker, prosident ot Paint company. John Retz, president of plumbing company. William Kinser, of a construction company., Tnomas Shyne, Syracuse, N. Y.. sales manager Underwood Typewriter company. William Shields, president Lyle company. George Goerncr, president of commission com-mission company. . Dean Weatherly, sales manager dry goods company. Thomas Wright, secretary of the Apollo club. William Erd, real estate dealer, East St. Louis. 111. Marshall Bier, local fur dealer. J. E. Chasnoff of St. Joseph. Mo., advertising manager for the St. Louis Republic. Frauk W. Albright, traveling salesman. sales-man. E. P. Williams, New York, traveling travel-ing salesman. , Roby Green, Herrin, III. Jennings, non-resident member of the Missouri Athletic club. McKenna. Burgess. F. W. Williams, St. Lous. Norman Hancock, St, Louis. John J. Ratz, president local plumbing plumb-ing company. Wolfsonu. A. T. Rannus, Mount Vernon, 111. The man listed as unidentified among the dead may be William E. Erd of East St. Louis, 111. Letters in the clothing were addressed to Mn Erd. The body also was identified as that of Allen Hancock of SL Louis. L. A. Ruff, St. Louis, buyer for a wholesale hardware company. A. J. Odgaard, SL Louis, sales agent railway supply company. Edwin G. Ke8sler, SL Louis, cashier wire company, killed in leap from sixth floor. John M. Ryckoy, Chicago, treasurer, and auditor Ford Manufacturing Co., St. Paul. James D. Rellly, contractor, of St. Louis. William Erd. East St. Louis. List of Injured. The injured follow; Theodore Levy, Louisville, Ky., salesman, both legs injured and left foot crushed. U. M. Scott, left hip fractured, internal in-ternal Injuries. Ben F. Williams, salesman, left leg fractured, internal injuries; serious. B. C. Holmes, McConnell, Miss. L. L. Leonard, lawyer, jumped; ribs fractured, feet crushed, hurt Internally. Intern-ally. Lee Wolf, merchant at Carruthers-ville. Carruthers-ville. Mo., coutuslons and possible fracture of spine in fall from second floor of fire escape. David L. Plum, purchasing agent for department store, right foot fractured In fall from improvised fire escape he made of sheets. A. D. Harned, Chicago, superintendent superintend-ent of an. electrical supply company; right arm and right ankle fractured In jumping from sixth floor. Edward T. Kaub, Chicago, salesman; sales-man; abrasions and contusions on right hand and left .knee, rescued by firemen who found him clinging to sixth floor window sill. William Koerner, house man at Missouri Athletic club, both feet fractured frac-tured in jumping from sixth floor to roof of four-story building. F. W. Williams, New York, hands burned and hip bruised. T. C. Little, Chicago, knee wrenched. Lee Walsh. Charles Schlmel, Chicago, both legs broken and Internally injureu rom 15-foot leap from sixth floor. John Dyer, engine company No. G, right leg fractured; caught under falling fall-ing wall. The exact number of dead may not be known for several days. Estimates Esti-mates vary between 15 and 100. One hundred and thirty-five persons were registered at the club last night. How many of these were In the building at the "time of the Tire is not known, but thirty-five have been accounted for. The dead, whose bodies havo been recovered, arc: JOHN MARTIN RICKEY' of St. Paul, Minn. JAMES RILEY. UNIDENTIFIED MAN. ' Others Missing: J. L. Hachnlen, Mark Hammer, president of St. Louis Retail store; W. R. Chcsley, L. A. Tilley, L. R. Ruff. C. E. Smith, W. A. Hunicke, D. E. Fitzgerald, sales manager for Pierce oil corporation, residence Springfield, Mo When the firemen arrived on the scene a few minutes after the blaze was discovered, the flames were shooting out of the roof and all the windows above the second floor. Men were jumping from windows and others oth-ers were climbing down ropes made of bed clothes tied together. More than a dozen jumped several stories to the roofs of adjoining buildings build-ings and escaped with broken legs or less serious injuries. Those who did escape ran about the streets in bath robes and night clothes apparently wild, until they were forcibly carried into neighboring hotels. Heroism of Fireman. Heroism bordering on tho superhuman super-human was exhibited both by firemen and guests at the club. The fire fighters time and again dodged one falling wall only to find themselves under another tottering mass of granite gran-ite and brick. Theodore Levy of Louisville. Ky., clung to a window sill until both his hands were scorched almost black. Just as Jie was about to let go, a fireman grasped him about the waist and carried him down a ladder. At the city hospital Levy declared two of the men who had been killed, jump ed from the window to which he clung until rescued. Robert C. Magill, manager of the club, and his wife, were roused by the smoke. They discovered the fire in the dining room on tho third fioor, and before seeking their own safety, rushed rush-ed up and down the halls knocking on doors and waking guests. Both were badly burned about the face, hands and feet. Conveyances Pressed Into Service. All the municipal ambulances and police patrol wagons and automobiles automo-biles were pressed into service to carry the wounded to the hospitals. Among those who were in the club at the time of the fire, but escaped was Walter Frltzch, financial agent of the St. Louis Federal league bass-ball bass-ball club. Mordecai Brown, manager of the Federals, who arrived here from New York-last night, remained at the club until a. few hours before the fire was discovered. As the walls and floors caved in they sent showers of burning ombers onto 'the roofs of the neighboring buildings and for a time threatened to cause a general conflagration in tho heart of the retail district. To prevent 'this, all the fire fighting apparatus ap-paratus of the city was brought to the scene. Telephone Operator at Post. The telephone operator, a young boy, remained at his post on the ground floor, even after the firemen began pouring water Into the building. build-ing. Many of the guests credited their escape to him. At G o'clock this morning, four hours after the fire had been discovered, discov-ered, the blaze was believed to be under control. Half an hour later, however, the boilers in the basement of the building began to explode and for the first time the firemen, under orders of their chief, withdrew from the street immediately in front of the building. It was feared the last two remaining walls would collapse and bury them. The glare of the fire brought thousands thou-sands of spectators to tho scene and the crowd greatly hampewid the work of the firemen until driven back by the police. Justice C. Orrick Bishop, assistant circuit attorney, roomed on the sixth floor. "The roar of the flames crackling like giant fire crackers awoke me," said Judge Bishop after his escape from the burning structure. "Thank God, there was a fire escape es-cape In front of my window," he said. "I ran down the six flights. I saw several men jump and bounce off the sidewalk like rubber balls. I was slightly bruised coming down the fire escape." Investigating Committee Appointed. The directors of the Missouri Athletic Ath-letic club appointed a committee or four to get a complete list of tho missing and of those who escaped. This committee established headquarters head-quarters at the Pre63 club and re quested all those who were registered regis-tered at the Missouri Athletic club, to notify them at once. The committee commit-tee is headed by Walter Frltsch, a stockholder of the local Federal league baseball club. Stories of the fire were told at the city hospital by persons who were Injured. L. L. Leonard said he was asleep on the sixth floor of tho building build-ing when he was awakened by smoke He ran Into the corridor but found the fire escape cut off by Haines He rushed back to his room and opeu-ed opeu-ed a window overlooking a store building on the west. Crawling out of the window sill, he hung by his fingers on the ledge until the intense heat forced him to drop to the root of the store building, two stories below. be-low. There he was picked up unconscious. un-conscious. William Koerucr, head houseman ot tho club, was awakened by the shouting of the firemen. He ran into the corridor of the sixth floor and there saw a man directing guests to the fire escape. When he reached the fire escape, the flames were playing play-ing about It so flrcely that he was forced back. He ran to the window from which Leonard was hanging and (Continued on FaEC Seven.) i DISASTROUS FIRE DESTROYS CLUB (Continued from Page One) finally the heat became so intense that he. too, was compelled to drop to the roof of the building two stories below. the death of Joseph Chasnoff oT St. Joseph, Mo., advertising manager for the St. Louis Republic, virtually was confirmed by Ernest Evans, who roomed at the club with Chasnoff. "Chasnoft roused me when the alarm was given and we started out of the room hand In hand," Evans said. "In the corridor Chasnoff was overcome by smoke arid dropped away from me. I looked for him for a few minutes and then had to run to save my own life. Outside, I waited a few minutes but he did not come out. I fear he was burned to death." The Missouri Athletic club occupied all but a part of the first floor of a seven-Btory building at the corner of Washnlgton avenue and Fourth street. The remaining part of the floor waB occupied by the Bdatnien's bank. The building stood at the end of the St. Louis approach to the Eadfe hridgo'ahd at the head of the principal prin-cipal retail street ot tho city. |