Most of the passengers aboard the City of Pittsburg were still asleep when fire broke out before dawn.
Within minutes, the side-wheel steamer was filling with smoke and flames as passengers rushed from their staterooms in panic. Children clung to their mothers, lifeboats were lowered, and rescuers rowed repeatedly between the burning vessel and the riverbank.
Some passengers jumped into the swift current and drowned. Others were trapped by the flames.
Early reports were chaotic, but by the following night, as many as 60 passengers and crew members were still dead or unaccounted for.
The 1902 disaster turned the steamer into what one newspaper described as a floating furnace on the river.
60 Lives Lost
CAIRO, Illinois. — The side-wheel steamer City of Pittsburg, en route from Cincinnati to Memphis, was burned to the water’s edge shortly after 4 o’clock yesterday morning at Ogden’s Landing, 24 miles from this city.
The early reports stated that 65 lives were lost and that many were badly burned and otherwise injured, but the list of casualties is not yet definitely determined.
Two boats and every available craft from this city went to the scene to extend relief. Efforts were made to catch the New South, of the same line, at Paducah and have her steam back for relief, but the New South had passed Paducah, upward-bound before the telegram was received.
Most of the passengers were still in bed when Second Clerk Oliver Philips gave the alarm. The engineers at once started all the pumping engines, while the crew brought all the hose into play.
Amid the streams of water on all sides, the flames from the lower deck and the dense clouds of smoke, the passengers rushed from their state rooms and a frightful panic ensued.
The appeals of the officers and crew could not appease the terror-stricken crowds that interfered with those throwing water on the flames, as well as with those working with the life boats. Few could adjust life preservers or do anything else for themselves.
The smoke was stifling. Great clouds floated through the blazing steamer, choking the passengers and adding to the terror.
Children cried pitifully, begging that they be saved. They knew, as well as their elders, that death confronted them, and clung to their mothers as though they alone could save them.
Life boats were manned and every effort was made to save the passengers from the floating furnace of flames.
Sturdy boatmen rowed as they never rowed before in their heroic work of rescue. From the river banks the burning craft and the dense clouds of smoke, tinged with tongues of flames from the vicious bed of fire, made a most impressive, yet weird spectacle. Boats were sent from the shore to help in the work of rescue, but the flames were only too surely consummating their work of destruction, to save al from the flames.
Boats laden to their limit with passengers in the scant attire they were able to gather were landed at the river banks. As fast as one boat could be emptied it returned to the ill-fated steamer, the heroic rescuers not waiting to catch a breath of rest.
The burning steamer was quickly headed to the bank, but passengers had to jump off the stern, and trying to swim ashore through the swift current, many were drowned. Many also perished in the flames.
Captain Philips says 20 or 25 of the passengers are missing and the same number of crew. Two women passengers were severely burned but will recover.
The fire started in the forward hatch, larboard, and burned fiercely when the steamer run ashore. Very few of the passengers or crew were aware of the fire until it was too late.
The captain and clerk last night claimed that in all, 80 persons have been accounted for, leaving 60 persons lost or unaccounted for.
Source: Oakes Republican. Oakes, N.D. April 25, 1902.
