Aberdeen Weekly News Thursday, Feb 16, 1899
Mrs. Mary Kampania
Mrs. Caroline Lindberg
The details of the terrible asylum fire at Yankton Sunday morning show it to have been the most horrible holocaust that has occurred in the northwest since the burning of the asylum at St. Peter, Minn., nearly twenty years ago.
The work of rescuing the charred remains of the seventeen inmates began today, but it is not at all likely that any of the bodies can be identified. The bodies appear to be all in one spot showing that they had crowded together either on the first or second floor and the floor giving away threw them into the seething fire below. All the inmates except the following named have been accounted for and there is not doubt they were all burned to death. [Others listed were from other counties]
The cottage was erected of stone and granite walls with wooden interior and was intended for laundry purposes, but owing to the crowded condition of the main building 40 of the female patients were placed here with the laundry in the basement. The fact cause of the fire is not know, except that it originated in the dayroom of the laundry. The lack of water greatly hindered the work of the firemen.
The burned cottage stands 800 feet in the rear of the main building, the water tank for fire protection standing 100 feet in the rear of the cottage. The stream pipes used for pumping ran from the boiler room to the main building through the cottage for heating and then to the artesian well or tank. The intense heat in the burning building caused the pipes to burst shortly after the fire began.
With the thermometer standing at twenty-three degrees below zero, the inmates who could escape came down the narrow flight of stairs in their night clothing and bare feet into the bitter cold and had it not been for the nearness of shelter the suffering and probable loss of life would have been terrible.
The building was three stories high with an attic and two entrances one east and one west. There was one stairway from the second and third floors which led into the main halls to these entrances, thus giving but one exit for those on the second and third floors and attic. Fifty-two persons were in the burning building, 40 patients and 19 female attendants. The attendants escaped, as did the others who were saved, with none of their personal effects, many losing all they possessed. An inquest is now in progress at the asylum, which may develop the exact cause. It is not thought blame will attach to any of the attendants.
Mrs. Caroline Lindberg, one of the Brown county inmates to meet her fate in the fire, was a daughter of Samuel Morine of Gem township, and leaves a husband who lives in Garden Prairie township. She had been an inmate of the asylum about two years and was considered incurable.
Mrs. Mary Kampania was the wife of Joel Kampania of Liberty township and was sent to Yankton some five years ago, and her case was one of the chronic sort also.
~Transcribed by volunteer researcher, Kathy Smith