The Detroit Times

FLOORS CROWDED,

SAY INSPECTORS

Experts Believe Accident in Peninsular Stove Plant Was Due to This Cause.

After a visit to the Peninsular Stove works at the request of Coroner Burgess, Tuesday morning, Building Inspectors Frank W. Claxton and Charles Heck were strongly of the opinion that the accident of last Saturday, when six floors in the warehouse gave way, causing the death of one man and the serious injury of three others, was due to overloading.

"We found that the heaviest stoves were stored on the sixth or top floor," said Mr. Claxton, "while the lighter ones were stored on the lower floors. We found, too, that poor judgment had been used in piling the stoves up. Instead of piling them so that the greatest weight would be over the girders, they were piled so that, in some parts of the floor, the weight would fall principally on the joists, between the girders.

"We talked with several employees and they told us they had been afraid of overloading, but were told to keep shoving them in.

"We found the timbers all sound and took measurements from which we will estimate how much they were capable of supporting. Then we will compute the weight of the stoves and will be able to say definitely whether the floors were overloaded.

The inspectors found that on that portion of the sixth floor that went down there had been piled, previous to the crash, three tiers of stoves, four high, eight long and four deep and each stove weighing 300 pounds. In addition there had been one tier piled up on edge. All these were heavy cook stoves.