Partial Collapse of Roof at A. J. Cameron's Mill - January 1910

American Textile Reporter - January 20, 1910

MILL BUILDING COLLAPSES.

Part of the roof and the walls of one end of the third floor of the worsted yarn mill of A. J. Cameron & Co., Glenwood avenue and Pacific street, Philadelphia, collapsed shortly before 6 o'clock on Friday of last week. A serious catastro phe was narrowly averted by the time ly warning of J. C. Platt, the general superintendent of the mill, whose prompt action saved the lives of 35 girls who escaped from the room in which they were working just in time to avoid an avalanche of bricks and steel girders. Frightened by the screams of the girl's more than 150 other women employes fled from the building in a panic but none were injured.

A pedestrian, however, was caught beneath a mass of falling debris and so badly Injured that he died shortly after.

Soon after the collapse of the building which was erected about six years ago and considered one of the model mills of the country because constructed solely of brick and steel, thereby being fireproof, Inspectors of the Bureau of Building Inspection examined the ruins. They declared they could assign no reason for the accident.

The collapse was accompanied by the bursting of automatic fire sprinklers throughout the building and for two hours before the flow was shut off, water poured over the finished and unfinished products of the mill. The loss from this source will be heavy and experts declare that the damage done to the building is so great that it will have to be practically rebuilt in many sections.