Will County IL Archives News.....Frightful Accident at the Drainage Ditch April 9, 1893
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com September 1, 2007, 8:29 am

Decatur [IL] Daily Review April 9, 1893
Lives Crushed Out

Fall of a Cantilever Crane

The Heavy Machinery Descends Upon a House in Which Fifteen Men Had Taken 
Shelter from the Storm and Killed Nine of Them Outright-The Crane Weighed 280 
Tons, Cost $40,000 and is a Complete Loss

Joliet, Ill., April 8.-At 6 o'clock Friday afternoon the worst storm known for 
years in this region, the powerful gale being almost cyclonic in its violence, 
swept up the line of the great drainage channel of the Chicago sanitary 
district. At Rome, a little village about ten miles north of this city and 
four miles north of Lockport, the wind caused a strange and horrible accident. 
A cantilever crane on wheels, used to carry the dirt from the drainage canal 
in the section managed by Mason, Hodge & King, and sublet to Dandridge & 
Banger, started down the track and when at the end of the track the bottom of 
it was compelled to stop by the manner in which the track is built. The top 
part, however, had gained such momentum that it could not stop and the 
enormous machine, weighing 280 tons, fell directly on the engine house. In 
this small house were fifteen men, nine of whom were killed and six injured.

Weighed 280 Tons

The unfortunates had gathered in the house to get out of the way of the 
oncoming storm, which was accompanied by pelting hailstones. The cantilever is 
ninety feet high with arms 350 feet long and weighing 280 tons. The killed 
are: Samuel Korus, foreman, of Joliet; eight Italian workmen. The six injured 
men were Italians who were employed in operating the crane and in other work 
of excavation. Every effort was made at the commissary, where the dead and 
wounded were taken, to care for the injured men. Doctors were called from 
Joliet and Lockport, but it was 11 o'clock before the wounded or dead were got 
out. The force of the fall damaged the crane so that it is a total loss. The 
tracks on which it runs extends north and south. The crane was on the south 
end of the track and had been carelessly left unfastened. The wind also blew 
over another cantilever a mile north, but no damage was done.

The Destructive Cantilever Crane

The enormous crane which caused this horrible accident is one of the most 
remarkable pieces of machinery yet built for the work of canal digging. Its 
great height and vast reach of its arms render it of very important service in 
the work of excavation. Great traveling buckets or cars move along its arms, 
going to the very bottom of the canal, and then carrying upward and to the 
tops of the high spoil banks the laden receptacles containing earth and rock. 
A number of these great machines are building for work along the canal of the 
sanitary district, at a cost, it is said, of $40,000 apiece.

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/will/newspapers/frightfu3nw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/ilfiles/

File size: 3.3 Kb