Milburn Home, Where President M’Kinley Died, Is an Object of Interest These Days

     “Look to the left and you will now see the Milburn home, made historic as the death place of President McKinley. As we pass the home, going northward, you will see the windows of a room facing toward the Exposition. It was in this room that the martyred President died”
     Spoken through a megaphone and resounding through the neighborhood, this speech broke the Sabbath stillness in the vicinity of John G. Milburn’s home, at No. 1168 Delaware Avenue, yesterday. It has been heard in the neighborhood of Ferry Street and Delaware Avenue so often that it has ceased to arouse comment from the residents. It comes from the guide in the tally-ho coaches which are filled with strangers in the city anxious to see the “points of interest.”
     That Mr. Milburn’s home is destined to be a “point of interest” for some time to come is indicated by the way in which public interest still clings to his residence. Not only the guides on coaches shout out the place, but crowds of people stroll up Delaware Avenue and linger in front of the house. Enterprising people have taken advantage of the interest in the place, and several stands are still in operation, where pictures of the Milburn home are on sale.

GENEROUS SPIRITED.

     That John G. Milburn is a man of benevolent spirit is attested by the calm way in which he submits to the public scrutiny. Though a man of much worldly responsibility, though the man upon whom the chief executive business of the Exposition falls, and though still a lawyer of large practice, he is also a man of patience.
     “It is remarkable,” he said, sitting before the log fire of his library yesterday afternoon and looking out on Delaware Avenue, “it is remarkable the way public attention still clings to this house. It only shows how the people loved the President.”

TAKES IT KINDLY.

     Such was the way in which Mr. Milburn spoke. He did not seem to regard the interest in his home as arising from idle curiosity. He was not sorry, since his own private home had been selected by destiny to speak so silently and yet so eloquently of a sad chapter in American history, that thousands of people should come reverentially to look at it.
     And yet while Mr. Milburn sat in his library he could see through the windows scores of people standing mutely with their faces turned toward his front door. Some of the sightseers even were walking up and down in front of the house to see it at various angles, and some were forgetful enough to point at the windows of the room in which President McKinley breathed his last.
     On Sundays the crowds are perhaps larger than on week days and so a policeman stands on the front sidewalk. Thus it becomes the mission of the policeman to answer many questions. The questioners want to know if it is the front room on the second floor or the rear room on the second floor, if it is the room above the library or the room above the sitting room, if the room has been changed any since its occupancy by its illustrious guest or if the furniture has been removed. One old farmer, evidently much affected by the scene, approached the policeman and said he had heard that the Milburn home had been purchased by the Government and supposing this to be true pleaded for admittance. When told that he had been misinformed the stranger turned away seemingly much disappointed at being denied a cherished hope.

NO DELICACY MANIFESTED.

     If it were not that the windows of the house are kept closed the comment of the strangers outside frequently would be audible to the members of the Mulburn [sic] family. But even then the loud speeches pronounced through megaphones from the tops of the coaches break into the house and the guide continues his remarks begun above: “That is the room up there where one of the curtains is drawn. The President was brought here direct from the Emergency Hospital on the Exposition grounds. It was on the same day the President was shot, September 6th. President McKinley died in that room shortly after 2 o’clock on the morning of September 14th.”
     The coach passes down the street and, except for the murmur of pedestrians, silence reigns until the approach of another such vehicle.