The Bedford Gazette

Burning of the Illinois Penitentiary.

The most severe fire that has visited Alton for many years occurred last night within the penitentiary walls. At about dusk, and some fifteen minutes after the convicts had retired from the yards and shops, fire was discovered bursting out in two or three places from a room in the building near the gate, designed for the drying house to the coopers'.

In an instant, as it were, the flames spread through the room and to the adjoining rooms of a large long building with cooperage stuff, machinery, &c., so that the fire was beyond all control ere the firemen got fairly at work upon it. Their efforts were then directed to saving the adjoining buildings, our readers being generally aware that several large buildings, comprising different branches of business, are grouped together within the prison walls, with alleys or roads between them.

The fire by this time presented a grand and fearful sight. The combustibles made an immense blaze, the glare beaming over the city, the river and the hill-tops, making all as light as day. Thus, for several hours, from night until one o'clock, the firemen and citizens tugged at the engines until they were quite exhausted, and, the flames being tolerably well under, many retired to their homes. But a vast pile of staves, some 300,000 had taken fire, and was not to be subdued. It commenced burning afresh. A new alarm was given, guns fired, bells rung, and drums beat, and the citizens and firemen again assembled and went to work.

Long before this, however, the city military was called out, about forty men of the Yager Company, with loaded arms, to aid in preventing a rebellion among the four hundred prisoners. A portion of the Yagers mounted the walls and guarded other weak points, and also stood sentry over about 100 short term and best disposed of the convicts, the latter being set to work on the engines, &c., which were again brought within the walls. The heat and smoke now enveloped the main prison building, in which the prisoners were locked up for the night, causing such an intense heat that the convicts began to call loudly for deliverance.

The main cell building was not ignited, but the upper floors and tiers of cells became so heated and full of smoke that the convicts in them were turned into the halls of the lower stories, where the heat and smoke was less intense. They were very fearful of being burnt alive. No escapes were effected. The loss is about one-third of the buildings of the prison, valued, with their contents, at between $25,000 and $30,000.