Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2024 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Port Huron Daily Saturday, 4 October 1879 The Adrian Disaster Further reports of the terrible disaster at the Lenawee County fair, at Adrian, Thursday afternoon, show the extent of the loss of life and injury to those on and about the grand stand when it fell, to have been greater than represented by first accounts. The death list has already reached thir- teen, and includes HENRY HART, an old, prominent and wealthy citizen, ex-mayor of the city, and secretary of the Michigan State Insurance company. The names of 210 persons who were more or less severely injured are published, and the list is not yet complete. It is also expected that a con- siderable number of the injured will die. The Detroit Post and Tribune's correspondent says: Not only all the city but the length and breadth of Lenawee county is a vast hospital filled with the victims of criminal carelessness, the fearful consquences of which were wrought out in less than 20 seconds. The result could hardly have been more disastrous if the closely packed grounds of the Lenawee agricultural society had yesterday been swept with a storm of shell and canister. The entire business portion of Adrian is festooned with crepe. With scarcely an exep- tion the stores on the principal streets are closed and the emblems of mourning hang in long continuous lines from their fronts. Men stand in groups discussing the catastrophe, the results of which become more terribly manifest as the hours go slowly by. But now the grave question of who is responsible is upon every tongue. It becomes more and more plainly evident that a fearful weight of account- ability rests with some one, and as the facts be- come more fully known the feeling of righteous indignation wages hotter and deeper. At an early hour this morning excited masses of men thronged the street corners, and deep and terrible curses were rained upon the heads of the offending par- ties. Threats of lynching some one were freely indulged in. There is considerable difference of opinion as to where the responsibility rests. The building which fell was a delusion and a snare, a veritable trap of death. In appearance it was a most inviting structure. A more extended description will not be uninteresting. It was 28 x 100 feet in size and 32 feet high. The first story of it was designed as an eating room and was 8 feet high. Above this was the portion which gives it its name. There were 11 rows of seats, each 100 feet long. The seats were very wide, with foot rests between them. A fine view of the whole race track was afforded. That it was terribly faulty is clearly demonstrated by the result, and the chief fault was "toe-nailing" the timbers which supported the seats. There were probably about 1,000 on the stand. The floor fell and the building crushed like an egg shell. The heavy timbers, eight inches square, and some of them 20 feet or more in length, rained down in all directions, carrying death wherever they struck. The affair was over, as far as the fall was concerned, in a few seconds. Where 1,000 happy people had a moment before stood in a large and apparently safe building, there was a jumbled mass of timbers and crushed, bleeding human forms. One gentleman assured the reporter that while trying to raise a timber from the body of his wife he saw near him a man whose neck was pinned down to the ground by a timber, and whose feet were fast. He was badly wounded, the bones of his feet being crushed. He wore a valuable gold watch and chain. A fiend in human shape rushed up and rif- led the pockets of the unfortunate wretch of watch and pocketbook. Other instances of a similar char- acter, though none so agravated as this, occurred. The most murderous agents of death were the heavy timbers composing the framework of the struc- ture. Where they were full, there fell the hand of death. So it happened in several instances that one of a party would be seriously hurt and another not at all. Two gentlemen, sitting one on either side of MR. HENRY HART, escaped injury. MR. HART was mortally injured. ===========================================================================