Workmen Killed In 50-Foot Fall

Fatal Accident At Grain Bin Under Constructions In City
Thursday May 14, 1959
A scaffold collapsed 117 feet up in the nearly completed block house
of the soybean drier at Jonesboro Grani Drain Drying Cooperative on
North Floyd Wednesday afternoon at 3 o'clock,and two workmen were
fell 50 feet to their death.
Dead are:
Clyde C. Moore, 51, of Bono.
Lovick P. Jones, 56, of Harrisonburg.
Jones was a carpenter,while Moore was a carpenter's helper.
H.P. Romine of Weiner, foreman of construction in charge of the job for Bishop Construction Company,
said the men were tearing decking from under a recently poured floor in the 176 foot high Blockhouse.
The blockhouse is where the drying machinery is located. The top level
of a blockhouse,when completed, contains machinery; the middle level
contains four bins,while the lower level contains more machinery. Just south
of the blockhouse area the 12 storage tanks.
The two carpenters were working at the top of the middle level in the northeast corner of the blockhouse.
Bob O'Connor, carpenter's foreman, said the men were working on an
eight-foot square wooden scoffold, which was suspended from the ceiling by four heavy wire cables.

There was nobody else in in the compartment when the men fell.
O'Conner said he had been on the scaffold with the men a few minutes
before the accident and it was apparently "secure" and steady. He said he and Orvis Smith had
been helping the other two men "rake out the forms"
Smith had left the area about the same time O'Conner did.
Workmen were attracted to the compartmen by the noise of the scaffold
collapsing. The first men to the scene said the found the two workmen crumpled on
the concrete floor about 50 feet below the scaffold, which was still hanging from the ceiling.

O'Connor's son, L. E. O'Conner, was the first person to reach the men
after they fell. O'Connor told officers that when he got there Moore was
dead, while Jones was still breathing "a little" Romine said one of the cable was broken when he
first looked at the crooked scaffolding.
The bodies had to be brought out of a window and carried across the
117-foot high storage tanks to a spot where there is a block and tackle.
Ambulance stretchers were raised to the top of the tanks on the block and
tackle rig,and the bodies were lowered on the stretchers. Landford's
Mortuary and Emerson and sons Funeral Home ambulances answered the call.

Coroner W. C. Craig and Jonesboro Police Sgt. Glenn Bradley investigated.
The two men had been working on the 750,000 bushel soy bean drier since the project began on Jan. 19.
It is next to Arkansas Rice Growers Co-op driers.
Foreman Romine said this is was the first serious accident since the job started.
Moore was born in Illinois and lived in Sedgwick many years he moved to Bono a week ago. He was a Methodist.
Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Louise Moore; two sons, James H. Moore of Bono and Robert Moore of Leaf River Ill.
a sister Mrs. Christine Songer of San Francisco, Hubert Moore of Leaf River Ill.
Elvis Moore of Bono, Jodie Moore and Roy Moore both of Jonesboro,
and four grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete with Gregg Funeral Home in charge.