TOLEDO BLADE, SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1893

 

RESULTS OF THE FIRE

 

 

The Consolidated Will Inconvenience Passengers a Day or Two Longer

 

Consolidated passengers on all lines which were affected by the Wheeler theater fire will suffer come inconvenience for a day or two longer. With their usual prodigality, they are complaining about changes which the company has been compelled to make. Mr. Wight, treasurer for the Consolidated, stated this morning that the current is not turned on because of the danger it would engender. In the mass of wires surrounding the Wheeler, the Western Union men are working, and the turning on of electricity would mean the sacrifice of some life from an exposed live wire. Insulation is burned off, leaving eighteen wires useless.

 

It will be late tomorrow, and possibly Monday, before the current can be turned on and the cars run as usual. Monroe street cars are making the circuit on Superior, instead of Summit street. The Cherry street cars from West Toledo  are running on Cherry and Summit to the Monroe cross tracks. Passengers going up Broadway change at the transfer office for the Broadway car, and at the Broadway bridge transfer again for Bellevue park. The Bellevue park cars run to the bridge, to make this connection.

 

Western avenue cars are cut in two, running to the cross-tracks of the Wheelson-Spico company. The Dorr street cars stop at the same place. East Broadway, Ironville, and Oak Street cars are operating as far as the cross-tracks on Summit street. The Union Depot and Lagrange street cars, whose usual route is through St. Clair street, now run through Lagrange, Bancroft, Cherry, and Summit, to the depot.

 

GAZING AT THE RUINS

 

Pulling Down the Shaky Walls – Good Work by Line Men

 

 

Curiosity seekers still swarm around the corner, at the opera house fire. They watch by the hour the efforts of the fire ladies to pull down the menacing rear walls of the ill-fated Wheeler building. Ropes are stretched around ruins on the opposite side of Monroe and St. Clair streets, and stalwart guardians of the ruined peace are kept busy pushing the crowds back. Several sections of the ruined brick walls were pulled down by the firemen  to-day. The gutted interior of the burned building is piled high with debris. It will be a big job to clear away the rubbish preparatory to rebuilding.

 

The energetic linemen of the electric light, telephone and street car companies have the tangled net-work of wires picked up and removed. Temporary repairs have been made, and street car service will be resumed on the two barricaded streets as soon as the firemen finish their work of demolition.