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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
WITH THE
TRAVELERS.
Graphic Description of the Minnesota Fires
by a Well Known Traveling Man.
/SjNE of the best known traveling men in the
^^ Northwest gives the following thrilling
account of the frightful catastrophe which occur-
red in Minnesota last Sunday. He says the St.
Paul and Duluth train, south bound, ran into
the burning district.
Conductor Sullivan issued immediate orders
to his crew to back Into Hinckley, but before the
train, running twenty miles an hour, could reach
Hinckley, the place was in flames. The train
stopped at the depot one fatal minute, during
which the woodwork of the engine and the bag-
gage car caught fire.
The train quickly resumed its backward jour-
ney toward the south, and the motion of the
cars fanned the flames to fury, and they soon
enveloped the sleepers, passenger cars and the
smoker.
While the train was stopping at Hinckley
nearly two hundred panic stricken residents of
this place rushed upon the platforms and into
the cars. When they discovered the train on
fire they began to moan, shout and pray, which,
with the terrible roar of the flames, made the
scene most awful.
A mile out of Hinckley, persons on the plat-
forms, rendered stark lunatics by the heat and
their terror, began to jump from the cars and
plunge into streams, into sand heaps or into the
smoke encompassed forest. A little further on
those in these cars, stifled with smoke, began to
smash the windows in a frantic attempt to get a
breath of fresh air.
Driven back by the flames eating their way up
the sides of the freshly varnished cars, they
stood in baffled amazement for a moment, when
dozens of them, in sheer desperation, tumbled
out through the open spaces to the ground be-
low, some beiog instantly killed by the fall, and
others lingering in the horrible heat until suffo-
cated.
In spite of the fact that the train was on fire,
from engine to rear end brake, the train crew
bravely stood at their posts, and ran the train
entire back six miles to Shunk Lake, where the
remaining passengers rushed out and into the
water. Some of them were in such a state of
exhaustion that they were unable to walk, and
half a dozen were entirely unconscious.
All of these latter were rolled in the mud and
water, and laid on their backs, just far enough
out into the lake to keep the water from running
into their mouths. All around the lake the
forests were roaring like the flames of a million
horse power furnace. Many of those in the
water were still in such a state of excitement
that they stood and offered prayers in a loud
voice for deliverance. The scene was one of the
most remarkable ever witnessed.
Engineer "Jim " Root, who had so bravely
piloted the train through that awful six miles
of fire, was found to be frightfully burned.
Conductor Sullivan, cool and fully collected all
through that awful journey, had, after it was
all over, become a raving maniac. A little later
he was put aboard a special and taken to a
Duluth hospital.
Along toward nightfall many of the passen-
gers, most of whom were bound for St. Paul,
began to make calculations on how to get home.
As a rule they agreed that it would be best to
go to Duluth and make a circuit through Wis-
consin. Three men, however, resolved to walk
back to Hinckley. These were James Edward
Lobdell, of St. Paul; James Anderson, of Min-
neapolis, and Charles Holt, of Duluth. The
thrilling story of their trip to this city is thus
told by Mr. Lobdell:
" I have been a traveling man for the last
dozen years, and have been over the Duluth so
many times that I felt safe in making the trial.
I was so well acquainted with the location of the
streams that I thought if we got into a tight
place we could run into one of them and save
ourselves. We lost all our baggage, as had the
rest of the passengers, and we had nothing
whatever except the clothes we wore and a
light overcoat for each. With the rest, Mr.
Anderson had lost $12,000 worth of bonds which
could not be replaced.
" We got along pretty well for the first half
hour, but we then ran into smoke so dense that
we could not see three feet in front of us. We
were in imminent danger of being suffocated.
We could not see the track, and the ties were
burning beneath our feet. Each of us took an
overcoat and wrapped it about his head, leaving
only a small opening from which to breathe. To
add to the horror of the situation, every little
way we would come across a dead body.
" We were only saved by occasionally arriving
at a railway cut, where there was generally
little smoke. Two miles above Hinckley the
dead bodies began to grow thicker. Most of
them had died from suffocation. In several
cases they had saved their heads by running
them into sand heaps, only to have their bodies
so badly burned that they could not survive.
" In one place we found four dead in one
heap—a mother and three children. She had
laid them on the ground and then lay down on
them in an attempt to cover them, p,very shred
of clothing was burned from every one of them.
" On the way down to Hinckley we counted
twenty-nine bodies, and at this point we learned
that the total death roll would reach above two
hundred, and scores ran directly into the
woods, where they had no chance whatever to
escape.''
Author (after first night performance): "If
you have any suggestions to offer as to changes,
I shall be glad to consider and act on them."
Critic : " I think it would give better satisfac-
tion to the audience if you were to eliminate the
horrible poisoning scene in the last act, and in-
sert it in the first.''—Pictorial Weeklies.
_
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