FIVE WERE DROWNED

SAD ACCIDENT NEAR FORT COLLINS.

A Party of Young People Lose Their Lives While Fishing by the Capsizing of a Boat – Father and One Child Escaped.

Denver, May 6. -- A special to Fort Collins to the Republican gives details of a very sad tragedy at Lewis Lake, near that town, yesterday afternoon.

The lake is six miles southeast of town, and the family of H. C. CARSRUDE reside on a farm near the lake. MR. CARSRUDE, his three daughters and his son, ROBERT CRAIG of Fort Collins and RAY BADGER of No. 3024 Humboldt street, Denver, decided to go fishing. There is a boat on the lake, a leaky old craft, but the seven persons decided it would be safe to get into the boat and paddle about near the shore.

As soon as they pushed off from the shore the boat began to fill with water from the leaks in the bottom, and the people in the boat became thoroughly frightened and confused. In his excitement RAY BADGER made an attempt to secure an oar and in doing so overturned the boat. Immediately the entire party was struggling in the water.

MR. CARSRUDE seized one of his children, his eldest daughter, aged about thirteen years, and succeeded in reaching the shore with her. He attempted to rescue the other members of the party, but was not successful, as all sank for the last time before he could reach them. MR. CARSRUDE and his eldest daughter were the only ones of the party who escaped drowning.

MRS. CARSRUDE, the mother of the drowned children, came to the shore of the lake just in time to see her children sink into the water for the last time.

RAY BADGER and ROBERT CRAIG were, it is said, unable to swim. They both made heroic attempts to rescue the children and save themselves, by clinging to the upturned boat, but in their struggles they lost their holds and went down.

The agonized father after rescuing his children rushed back to the spot where his three children went down, but he was unable to reach them in time and was not even able to recover their bodies, although the water at that point was not deep.

Neighbors were notified and soon willing hands were doing all in their power, both in soothing the wildly distracted parents and in the recovery of the bodies of the lost ones. It was not until eight o'clock that the last body was brought to the surface. The lake was not large, but an undergrowth of weeds and grass retarded the progress of dragging the lake.

The CARSRUDE family is a prosperous and prominent one and is universally respected. ROBERT CRAIG was a young man about twenty years of age and had lived all his life in Larimer County.
RAY BADGER was a resident of Denver and had been in this section but a short time. He was about nineteen years of age.

New Castle News Colorado 1895-05-11
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!