Scan 29
Musical Courier 1893-04-12: Vol 26 Iss 684, 1893
66 lines. Read by computer on 26 September 2026. Printed page 30. See the scan on archive.org.
1Cub Berdan Shaken up.
3At 4:15 yesterday morning there was a terrific explosion in the basement of the Cleland Building on State street. It shook the buildings in the neighborhood for two blocks.
5There was a sudden, sharp report like the bang of a Gatling gun. Then in the silence that ensued was heard the clatter of window glass and the noise of falling plaster.
7Windows were broken in buildings as far away as Genicke & Caspary's jewelry store, on the opposite side of Michigan avenue. The windows at both the rear and front of Freund Brothers were completely shattered, and the interior of the store looked as if a whirlwind had swept through it. The windows in the old "Tribune" Building, that stands just at the foot of the alleyway from which the explosion seemed to come, were broken, and everything fragile for half a block around seemed to have been shattered by the explosion.
9The startled guests from the Cadillac Hotel came rushing down stairs in reckless deshabille, thinking the hotel had blown up. People came rushing from all buildings in the neighborhood, but when they arrived upon the scene there was nothing to see except broken window glass and the complete wreck of the rear portion of the Cleland Building.
11There was no fire, no smoke, no evidences whatever of the explosion that had taken place, except the destruction that it had left behind it.
13It was as if old Aeolus had suddenly burst out from the Cave of the Winds in the centre of the earth and made his exit through the Cleland Building, breaking his way resistlessly through floors and partitions in his hasty effort to escape, but not stopping to do other destruction. The door in the barber shop in the basement of the building leading in the direction of the furnace was torn from its hinges, but the barber chairs were left undisturbed.
15It was soon learned that the devastation was the result of an explosion of natural gas in the basement of the Cleland Building. It appears that at 12 o'clock last night Charles Crosby, a colored boy about 16 or 17 years old, was sent to the rear of the building to turn off the gas from the hot water tank. This tank is situated in the rear of the building in a room shut off from the engineer's room where the furnace and boilers are located. In turning off the gas from this hot water tank Crosby did not turn the stop cock far enough to entirely shut off the gas, though he did cut off the flame. When Superintendent Lynn examined the meter and the pipes at 11 o'clock yesterday morning he found the gas still flowing. There was such a strong odor from the basement that the neighbors were complaining about it.
17This gas had been flowing into the furnace all night long. From the stove it passed up the pipe which connects with the flue that leads to the furnace, where there was still a hot fire burning. It poured out into the little room and passed over the partition into the furnace room. Having a heavier specific gravity than air it did not rise, but settled to the floor and accumulated there all night until it filled the room up to the level of the mouth of the furnace. When it began pouring into the furnace it exploded.
19There must have been a large accumulation of gas all over the building. Otherwise there could not have been so tremendous an explosion. Fortunately at the rear of the building the basement is lighted by a large open grating, which offered an easy outlet for the sudden expansion of the gas. Besides, on the first floor above the basement, over the private office of Dr. McSween, there is a light well. When the gas ignited in the furnace the force of the explosion burst up through the floor of Cub Berdan's music store, which is located at the end of the hall on the first floor and directly over the furnace room. It tore up the partition between the music store and Dr. McSween's office, and carried the iron cap of the boiler up through the skylight and deposited it there on the screen that guarded the windows at the base of the light well.
21It tore through the building like a hurried Titan, breaking the doors and smashing the windows in its efforts to escape. There is a brick partition that separates the engine room from the rooms in the front portion of the basement. It scattered this partition like straw across the floor.
23It passed up the stairway and burst the partition in its efforts to get into the outer hallway. In its haste it wrecked a brick pier that supported the foundation of the building.
25The explosion tore the windows out of the furnace room at the rear of the building and passed up through the grating into the alleyway, where it broke all the windows in Freund Brothers' store, passed through the building like a tornado and broke the windows in the upper stories of the building across Michigan avenue. It tore down the alleyway and broke the windows in the old "Tribune" building, and away up in the garret of the Cadillac it smashed one lonesome window. Then it passed off into the upper air, like Aeolus in haste to take his seat among the immortals who dwell in the blue empyrean above the earth.
27The first man on the scene after the explosion was M. V. Lake, who lives with his wife in a room directly over the boiler room on the second floor. He was awakened by the report of the explosion. He describes it as like the boom of a cannon directly in his ears. He felt the building shake and tremble under him and expected to feel the walls crumble about him. He heard nothing, however, but the rattling of glass and the falling of plaster. His wife beside him screamed and wanted to get up, but he lay very still for a moment to see what was going to happen next. Then he leaped out of bed and hurried half dressed down stairs.
29It was expected that in all this destruction there would be some fire but there was none. Only a little blaze beside the furnace, which was easily extinguished with a hand grenade.
31But the basement and the office of Cub Berdan just above it were simply a mass of ruins. Sheet music, broken violins and battered trombones lay in a mess in the basement. The floor was torn up, the plastering was falling from the walls, and there were broken spaces in the ceiling where some projectile from the basement had been hurled through the ceiling. The glass in the transom above the front door was broken, but there was very little damage to any other portion of the building. There were a few lights of glass broken in the barber shop which is run by Charles Murault.
33There was only one other person in the building during the night and that was C. H. Oakman, dentist. No one was injured.
35The Cleland Building is a six story brick structure and was completed last spring. It is insured for $20,000. The loss is about $5,000. It is uncertain whether the insurance policy covers the loss from natural gas explosion or not.—Detroit "Tribune," April 3.
37The Southern Music and Machine Company.
39At a meeting of the stockholders of the Southern Music and Machine Company held on March 31, W. A. Atchison, Jesse French, W. H. Graham, M. S. Combs and E. S. Priest were elected directors. The directors immediately elected W. H. Graham president and manager, and Eugene S. Priest secretary and treasurer. The company will deal in all kinds of musical instruments and sewing machines in Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky. Mr. Priest will not take active charge as secretary and treasurer until about July 1.—Nashville "Banner."
41—Mr. A. B. Saltzer, the road representative of Mason & Risch, was in Chicago on April 4, and will go from there to the Pacific Coast.
43—Harold F. Brown and Joe Gross, who are to look after the Behr Brothers' exhibit at the world's fair, will start West on Monday, the 17th inst. The Behr piano will be shipped this week or the first of next, weather permitting.
45—The Brambach piano factory at Dolgeville, N. Y., is getting fairly well under way. Owing to a blockade on the Little Falls and Dolgeville Railroad considerable material for the factory is being delayed and until that is delivered pianos cannot be finished. The delay it is hoped will be of short duration.
47—C. N. Stimpson, the piano leg manufacturer, is to erect a factory on Meadow street near Moseley's trotting park. The building is to be of wood, two stories high, 96×40. It will be supplied with an engine and boiler house and several dry houses, separated from the main building by brick walls. It will cost $4,000 and will be finished by June 1. Beckwith & Wood have the contract. The erection of the building in this locality will have a tendency to build up that portion of the town and a boom is likely to result.—Springfield "Republican."
49The Needham Exhibit.
51WASHINGTON people will in no way be ashamed of their representation through the Needham Piano-Organ Company at the world's fair. Their shipment, consisting of fourteen organs and eight pianos, is among the finest that skill can produce, and yet they are the same as that company is putting up every day, except that they are receiving the little extra finish that these people are giving to all customers who are willing to pay the extra price for the work.
53The beautiful seven octave piano-organ, in quartered oak, is one of the most complete things in the musical line. In appearance it so nearly resembles an upright piano that it is usually mistaken for one at first sight. The superintendent of the organ department was the originator of the seven octave organs, having first made them in Massachusetts in 1877 and first exhibited at Inter-State Fair, in Boston, in 1878. The church or cathedral organ has never been surpassed so far as tone, volume and variety of combination are concerned, and yet everything is the essence of simplicity. All the quartered oak cases are especially fine. The eight pianos consisting of two rosewood, two oak, one Hungarian ash, one Circasian, one mahogany and one white enamel. The last named is the pride of the house, and a most beautiful thing it is—pure white, striped with gilt.
55The company is sparing no pains to do the very best work. They are fortunate in securing as superintendents and workmen, in both the organ and piano departments, the very best skilled labor, Mr. Gleitz, of the piano department, having being raised, as it were, making pianos, his father and grandfather having been piano makers. As a result their business is continually growing. During the 21 months that the present superintendent has been in charge of the organs they have sold 9,749 organs, and the piano sales average 50 per week, and they are away behind on orders. They make everything from the very cheapest to the very best, but make a specialty of the good work.—Washington "Tidings."
57WE DO NOT TRAVEL MUCH
59And would prefer to have you write us for prices on
61Thoroughly Kiln-dried CHESTNUT, Shipped on short notice.
63Also ASH, QUARTERED OAK, WALNUT, COTTONWOOD, MAPLE and POPLAR.
65BURDEN & COUCH, Cleveland, Ohio.
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