Collapse Of The Winnebago County Courthouse
Originally published in “Murder And Mayhem In Rockford Illinois”
Winnebago County decided it needed a brand-new courthouse to meet the needs of the growing area in 1875. The population of Rockford at this time was around twelve thousand people, and the town had twelve churches, five banks and several newspapers. The courthouse project was advertised, and many plans were submitted until, finally, Henry L. Gay’s design was accepted. W.D. Richardson was the contractor hired to build the newest Winnebago County Courthouse, and F.E. Latham was the supervisor of the project.
W.D. Richardson was a contractor from Springfield who had experience building the French Venetian style of building that was selected. Work began in the spring of 1876, and the cornerstone was set on June 22, 1876, with great fanfare and led by the state’s Masonic lodges.
The domed roof was to be the “jewel in the crown” of the building and originally was scheduled to be set in 1876. The weather didn’t cooperate, and the whole project was behind schedule for several months. It was not ready for the dome to be added until the spring of 1877.
On Friday, May 11, 1877, at around 11:30 a.m., W.D. Richardson and F.E. Latham were inspecting the domed roof and walls. They were discussing their concerns about the strength of the walls supporting the dome. Richardson heard the horrific sound of something cracking, and both men ran to the northwest corner of the building. They just had time to reach the west wall when the front of the building fell.
“Just as the keystone was being placed in the dome of the main pavilion the brickwork between the iron and the stone gave way, and the entire dome and interior walls of the structure came crumbling down with a terrible crash, which was heard nearly a mile away.”
The crash was tremendous, and a wall of dust sprang up where the wall once stood. Spectators hesitated just for a moment before they rushed forward to see what could be done for the twenty or so men working inside the structure.
Timothy Flanagan was one of the men working that day. His task on that Friday morning was to set the keystone in the pediment of the dome. Flanagan was working up at the top when the wall started to crumble. The crowd below looked on in horror as Flanagan leaped across in an attempt to grasp the main guy rope. Flanagan missed the rope and fell one hundred feet to the ground below, his body hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
Several men ran forward, picked up Flanagan’s body and put it on the lawn of the courthouse. The masonry fell from all sides, and men’s screams could be heard above the roar of the falling stone. Men were seen hanging from ropes on different parts of the building, while others were jumping from windows.
Men from the crowd rushed forward to assist with the rescue efforts as others ran for doctors. The rescuers uncovered several men quickly. One of the first men uncovered was Andrew Bildahl, who had a terrible gash on his head that was filled with ash and mortar. He was loaded into a cart and taken to his home to have the wound dressed.
William Mclnnes of Rockford was almost completely buried under rubble, but the men quickly got him out and loaded into a cart to be delivered to his home. He suffered a broken leg and numerous injuries. George Gloss was so badly mangled that the sight of his body visibly shook the crowd. He was smashed and was missing a leg. He was carried over to the old courthouse, which was set up as a temporary morgue.
Two more men were saved from the fire escape, led to safety by Chief Engineer John Lakin. The word had started to spread throughout the city, and others came to assist. Family members rushed to the building to hear the condition of their menfolk. Many of the men working on the building were from the area, and friends would peer into the faces of the men as they were brought out of the debris. They were either loaded onto a wagon to be transported to their homes or laid in the old courthouse to wait to be identified.
Some of the men were from Springfield and had no family members living nearby, but they had acquaintances who ran to help. The injured men from Springfield were taken to the City Hotel to have their wounds tended.
There was a wretched moment when a poor German woman came forward screaming her husband’s name, Albert Haug. When his body was finally brought out, it presented a ghastly spectacle for all to see. His poor body had been pulverized and torn by the large stones that fell on him. The men rushed him through the crowd to the courthouse as quickly as possible.
Scene after heart-wrenching scene played out as the rescuers continued to dig for the men. A little girl wandered through the crowd crying for her papa. No one had the heart to tell her that he was still missing. His body would not be found for another day.
The inquest was started as soon as the bodies were laid out in the courthouse and covered with cloths. The purpose of this inquest was not to determine the cause for the accident but to identify the dead men. Other men were still missing, and the rescue efforts continued for days. Around 12:00 a.m. on Saturday, one of the workers came across a clump of human hair. It was shortly found to be A.E. Hollenbeck’s scalp. His body was pinned under a massive stone weighing several tons. Drills were brought in, and parts of the rock were drilled off until the only part still trapped was his arm. The decision was made to cut the arm off to free the rest of the body. The top of Hollenbeck’s head was completely gone. As they removed the rest of Hollenbeck’s body, they uncovered another man. “Big Fred” Haug was from Springfield, and his body was so ghastly that no description of the remains was given. These last two bodies took over four hours to uncover. In all, it took over forty long hours for all the bodies to be discovered.
Trains arrived from all over northern Illinois as people flocked to Rockford to see the remains of the building. The police roped off the dangerous area and stood guard to keep the crowds at a safe distance.
When the totals came in, seven men were killed immediately and two others died later; another twelve were wounded in the tragedy. Funerals were held, and more was learned of the men who died. Hollenbeck was forty-five years old and had been born in New York, like many of Rockford’s early settlers. He was a Mason and was buried with full Masonic honors. Over one thousand people attended his funeral.
Fred Haug left a wife and four children in Springfield and was a brother of Chris Haug, who formerly owned a marble yard here. Albert Haug was a son of the above-mentioned Chris Haug and left a wife and children in Rockford.
John Pipe moved to Rockford in 1875, and his father was the foreman on the courthouse project. George Gloss, who lived in Rockford, was an African American who left a wife and three children. John Warren, another African American, worked as a rigger and lived in Rockford with his wife and three children.
Frank Harris, the blacksmith, was on the roof when the courthouse fell. He advised a co-worker to run, but then he turned the other way. The co-worker lived, and Harris fell with the building. He was pulled from the ruins with a badly crushed leg. Fred was taken to the City Hotel for treatment, which included amputation of his leg; unfortunately, gangrene set in. Harris was the ninth man to die. He was only twenty-four years old and lived in Dixon. His family members came to retrieve his body and took him home for burial.
Inquests attempted to answer the questions left by the horrible accident. The articles in the paper seemed to point the finger at the architect, Mr. Gay. The same articles praised the builder, Richardson, stating that at personal cost, the builder added improvements to increase the safety of the building. Richardson had also impressed everyone with the care he gave the wounded men and their families.
The coroner’s jury investigated the accident for over twelve days, interviewing workmen, the architect and other architects who studied the design. In the end, they found the architect guilty for the flawed design, and the contractor and the county board were found guilty of negligence for not noticing the flaws. A new architect and designers were hired to assess the damage caused by the falling dome and to complete the project. The courthouse was finally completed with the dome, and the building was dedicated in October 1878. The final cost was $211,000.
In an excerpt from a story published in the May 18, 1877 Rockford Weekly Gazette the reporter wrote: “Never before has any public affliction found its way so near to the doors of our own homes or been made so sacredly our own.”
Sources:
New York Tribune. “A Courthouse Falls in Ruins.” May 12, 1877.
Rockford (IL) Morning Star. “First Courthouse Built without Public Funds.” November 15, 1969.
Rockford (IL) Weekly Gazette. “Courthouse Disaster.” May 24, 1877.
—————-. “Horror Stricken.” May 17, 1877.
—————-. “Rockford’s Calamity.” May 18, 1877.
Copyright © 2015, 2024 Kathi Kresol