Jim Kershner’s this day in history

A deadly fire broke out in the Bunker Hill & Sullivan mine near Kellogg. Miners trained in fighting fires were battling the blaze, which was in the “timbers above the station on the Kellogg tunnel landing.”

The fire itself was not hot, but the smoke was dense and choking. One man, a pumpman who was fighting the fire, was missing and believed to have perished from the smoke. A rescue crew found no trace of him.

However, hope remained that he might be found safe. 

From the medical beat: Panic was in the air at a mass meeting of the Union Park neighborhood after it was revealed that one of the residents, Antone Volcano, had leprosy.

One neighbor proposed that McKinley School be closed “until the leper was taken care of.” This resolution failed by four votes. Volcano’s son had earlier been reported, erroneously, to be suffering from leprosy. Nevertheless, about 15 percent of the parents were already refusing to send their kids to school.

Another resolution called for the fumigating of the Gem Theater, which Volcano had apparently attended. This resolution passed.

A third resolution, which also passed, called for the city to place a guard at the Volcano house to enforce a quarantine.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1871: The Great Chicago Fire erupted; fires also broke out in Peshtigo, Wis., and in several communities in Michigan.

1945: President Harry S. Truman announced that the secret of the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.