Aug. 30, 1907 (Friday)

BRIDGE AT QUEBEC COLLAPSES, KILLING DOZENS: More than 80 construction workers were killed yesterday in the collapse of the huge bridge being built at Quebec. Today's Boston Globe says, "the vast mass of steel work lies a tangled wreck across the St. Lawrence channel. The accident happened just as men were ending their shift. Some families in the area lost five or six men in the disaster. Many of the dead men were Mohawk workers
Today, it certainly looks beautiful, belying the tragedy in its history. The story of the building of it makes for interesting reading.

WAS THE ORCHARD BEACH FIRE CAUSED BY A WOMAN CURLING HER HAIR? A fire investigator from Maine is in Boston trying to find the name of a woman who might have started the massive fire that destroyed much of the resort of Old Orchard Beach, Maine. The story is that she "was curling her hair in the annex of the Emerson [hotel], when the lamp ignited a curtain and started the fire which wiped out one-third of the town. Nobody has been able to locate, or name, the woman, who was getting ready to attend a party at one of the big hotels. Today's Globe says the investigator has a challenge, adding that "unless he gets some trace of her while in Boston, her identity may never be learned."

IS IT AN AD OR IS IT NEWS? Here's an interesting layout in today's Boston Globe, with this advertisement (with the headline "Monster Is Forced from Little Girl") that tells an tale about a 40-FOOT TAPEWORM emerging from the innards of a young. It's virtually indistinguishable from the other news stories (one of which is a follow-up of yesterday's news of a doctor's "criminal operation" on a woman from Lowell and the hunt for a young man supposed to be involved in the woman's life). The girl's story promotes something called "Mr. Cooper's medicine" which was available through Jaynes Drug Stores in Chicago. The advertisement includes a statement from Lillian West's sister:
She took it for two weeks, when one morning a tapworm measuring forty feet passed from her system.
No word on where the worm went after it left Lillian.