Iowa
Old Press
The Independent
Forest City, Winnebago co. Iowa
March 5, 1896
Big Bridge Collapses - Structure Connecting Rock Island
and Davenport Goes Down
With a crash that could be heard for blocks, a 180-foot section
of the Government bridge between Rock Island, Ill., and
Davenport, Iowa, dropped into the Mississippi river Tuesday [3
Mar 1896], carrying with it the derricks and other appliances
that were used in the reconstruction work that was in progress,
and involving in the wreck the cables of the Western Union and
Postal Telegraph Companies, the Central Union Telephone Company,
People's Light Company, and Tri-City Railway Company. The
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific found its system cut in two by
the gap and made arrangements to send its southwestern and
Western business for the east over the Burlington, Cedar Rapids
and Northern tracks to Clinton, via Columbus Junction and West
Liberty. Another result of the accident was the shutting down of
the street car system of Davenport.
One workman was injured, Bert Kustard, a Swede, having both legs.
broken.
A train of cars loaded with sand occupied the bridge at the time
for the purposes of adding to its stability by its weight, but
was to have been removed in a few minutes to permit the firefly
passenger to cross. The latter train stood upon the sound portion
of the bridge when the drawspan went down, and hastily backed to
a safer location in time to save passengers from anything worse
than a bad fright.
The Phoenix Bridge Company was rebuilding the bridge and widening
its upper deck so as to allow the Rocks Island road a double
track, the Government and the road sharing the expense. Residents
who know the terrible impact of the ice at the spring break-up
have shaken their heads and speculated upon what would happen
when the ice came down against the false work that upheld the
drawspan. Work on this span was being hurried so that it could be
swung for the first boat after navigation opened, but the
predictions of the wiseacres came true. A five-foot rise was
followed by a movement of the ice that snapped the heavy timbers
upholding the span like so many toothpicks and utterly wrecked
the draw. The ice field, having done its work, moved down the
river. The Phoenix Company estimates its loss at $50,000.
[transcribed by P.N., February 2012]
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The Independent
Forest City, Winnebago co. Iowa
March 12, 1896
Des Moines Medical College Faculty Denies Some Ugly
Charges - Make No Contracts for Bodies.
The executive committee of the Board of Trustees of Drake
University held a meeting at Des Moines to investigate the
faculty of the university medical college, which has been
vigorously assailed on the charge that it has been systematically
buying bodies for dissection from grave robbers and encouraging
the desecration graves. It was charged that the faculty had made
a contract with a gang of grave robbers to take from them
seventy-five bodies. The members of the faculty the medical
department denied all knowledge of any such deals, and the
committee was unable to secure any evidence that such methods had
been employed. Dr. McCarthy, the demonstrator in anatomy, who was
charged with having made the deal for the two bodies shipped
there in trunks from Omaha, was not called before the committee.
The committee, in order to show its good faith, adopted a
resolution condemning the desecration of graves for such
purposes.
[transcribed by P.N., February 2012]