Chicago, Illinois, USA
1894 - BIG BLAZE AT CHICAGO. Five Buildings at the World's Fair Grounds Destroyed.

THE FLAMES FANNED BY A FIERCE SOUTHWEST GALE.

Special to the Record-Union.
CHICAGO, July 5. - The World's Columbian Exposition is a billowy sea of fire. The administration building, the architectural crown of the White City, with its gilded and decorated dome, its supporting pavilions enriched with statuary; the majestic agricultural building, with decorated colonnades, with its beautiful statue of abundance, above which once wheeled St. Gaudens' beautiful figure Diana the Chaste; the beautiful hall of mechanical arts, with its lofty fluted Corinthian colonnades, its superb circular porched entrance and its figure-tipped spires; the light and airy electricity building, with its open roof, lanterns, its curvilear entrance, where erstwhile stood the statue of Benjamin Franklin on the south, and its graceful projecting bays on the north; the mammoth manufactures and liberal arts building, with large arches of steel inclosing a forty-acre lot, and its lofty triumphal cornice and central arches, together with a number of structures have passed into history at the wave of an incendiary's blazing hand.

From the south colonnade to the Government building, and, from the lake to the golden door of the transportation building, the world's famous White City is no more. As the evening sun was shedding his rays for the last time on the erstwhile scene of life, they fell upon the familiar outlines of these floaters of human handiwork, almost untouched in their loveliness. Two hours later, the new moon bent her pale crescent above them, shining on a mass of ruins, wrapped in a pall of smoke, save where the yellow red of blazing timbers flare against the blue black which covers the site of the White City and covers up all of the great departmental structures.

The fire spared only the transportation building, horticultural and fisheries building and the art palace. The last named is now occupied by the Field Columbian Museum, and the fisheries building is a mere steel skeleton, having been demolished by a wrecking company. Besides these, the Government building, the woman's building and the British buildings are all that remain of the hundreds of structures that once filled Jackson Park. Even the polyglot glories of the merry midway have departed.

The fire was discovered by several boys in the southwestern corner of the first floor of the terminal station. When first seen it was but an incipient blaze and the boys tried to stamp it out for several minutes. They were unsuccessful, however, as the fierce gale which was then blowing from the southwest fanned the fire.

Before an alarm could be turned in the fire had reached the second story of the building. Owing to the distance which separated most of the engine companies from the scene of the fire, there was considerable delay in getting a stream of water upon the blazing structure. The first alarm was immediately followed by a 3-11 call, and this by a special call for ten engines.

By the time the first detachment of engines was fully at work the terminal station was a mass of flames and the fire had leaped across to the administration building. In twenty minutes the dome of this beautiful structure fell with a terrible roar, and sparks and blazing brands were carried by the wind north and northeast to the mining, electricity and agricultural buildings. The electricity building was the first to take fire. In a few minutes it was enveloped in flames, and at 7:10 the glass roof collapsed and the iron framework of the structure fell in. At 7:15 the east end of the mining building fell in, and the flames became so fierce that the engine companies stationed between the electricity and mining buildings had to fly for their lives.

Engine No. 18 was forced to abandon their engine and had scarcely time to unhook the horses from their traces. One of the animals succeeded in getting away but the other was suffocated. Several hundred feet of hose was also burned.

The Record-Union
Sacramento, California
July 6, 1894

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