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Station: Brush Street Union Station (Original) |
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Michigan's Internet Railroad History Museum |
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The destruction by fire of the original Brush Street depot and adjoining property, a ferry boat and passenger train, with heavy loss of life, was one of the principal holocausts of Detroit's history. In the evening of April 26, 1866, barrels of naphtha were being loaded upon a freight car, and alongside the car stood a passenger train, well filled with passengers, as the departure was scheduled for 10:00 p.m. The ferry boat Windsor was unloading merchandise at the dock. One of the naphtha barrels was observed to be leaking, and when someone approached with a lighted lantern to examine the barrel, an explosion immediately occurred. The blazing fluid was scattered in every direction; other naphtha barrels exploded and quickly the buildings, the passenger train and the ferryboat were afire. Some of the people jumped into the river, but most of them stood refuge on the ferryboat, which soon drifted into the river aflame, the mooring line having been burned through. The Windsor drifted down the river, and to her assistance went the ferryboat Detroit, while the revenue cutter John Sherman secured those who had jumped into the water. Despite all efforts of the rescuers, seventeen persons were burned to death in the hold of the Windsor. In the passenger train, which was prevented from leaving by a freight train ahead, the occupants were hustled from their cars and berths, but one man was suffocated to death. Every building on the water front between Brush and Hastings streets was destroyed. The loss of property in this fire was estimated at $1,000,000. [HWC] |
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