The Indianapolis Journal

Damage at and Near Winters

Special to the Indianapolis Journal

WINTERS, Cal., April 19.-The shock at Winters caused great damage. There was not a chimney standing in town this morning. Main street presents a badly wrecked appearance, although the buildings are still standing. The large new D. V. Bliss hotel, at the junction of Main street and Railroad avenue, suffered considerably, much of the brick front caving into the street. There were about forty guests asleep in the hotel when the shock occurred, and men, women and children ran terror-stricken down the stairs. On reaching the office they found chairs scattered around, plaster fallen, walls opened and furniture in confusion. The kitchen was also badly shaken, and the wife of the cook, Mrs. Bertha Roberts, was rather severely hurt by falling plaster.

Sixty feet of the fire wall of the new Cradwick building, on Main street, toppled westward upon the frame roof of Judy Brothers' stables, and crashing through buried six horses in their stalls, though singularly, not badly hurting them. To-day a school-house, just finished by the contractors, was to have been turned over to the trustees. The brick foundation was cracked, chimneys thrown to the ground and plaster torn. The old school-house is so badly wrecked that no school was held to-day. The loss to the town is estimated at between $70,000 and $100,000.

At the grave-yard tombstones were wrenched around or completely shattered.

Two miles southeast of Winters, J. K. Wolfskill's large stone house was wrecked. He was asleep with his wife when the wall crashed in, just missing the bed, and saving their lives.

There was a distressing rumor afloat this afternoon about the demolition of the little town of Monticello, seventeen miles from Winters. There is no railroad or telegraphic communication therewith, and at this time there is no way of verifying the report. W. J. Pleasant's house, in Pleasant Valley, was wrenched from its foundation. From all around come reports of wells filling up with caving earth, and narrow escapes from awful fires and death by the falling of burning lamps in sick-rooms. What is most mystifying in the face of all the damage done is that no lives were lost and very little injury to persons is reported. The bank building on Main street was wrecked. There is not a whole window left in any house on that street. In the office of the Express forms were pied, the type emptied from cases and an old Washington press, weighing over a ton, knocked over. A big job press suffered similarly.