June 10, 1956--Only minor injuries to two persons, though major "renovation" of a store building and heavy damage to a bus, resulted yesterday morning when a Channel Lines bus roared out of control down Seward street at 60 miles an hour and plowed through the wall of Rusher's Juneau-Young hardware store.

Ray Clements, the driver, the only person on the big bus, suffered minor lacerations to his  hands and face.  Ronnie Rusher, 15, son of Mr. and Mrs. Carl Rusher, suffered a sprained ankle.  He was inside the store.

The air brakes on the bus failed as Clements turned into Seward Street above the Federal building [now the State Capitol]. His frantic attempts to shift the vehicle into gear were unsuccessful as it  picked up speed going down the hill.

Clements fought the bus all the way down as it whistled  across Fourth, zipped  across Third, roared  across Second, and headed at a mile a minute for the busiest intersection in town,  Seward and Front.

Swerving the bus to miss a car there, he glanced off a telephone poll and rammed through the store wall.  Fully two thirds of the bus went inside, scattering fishing tackle, guns, and store fixtures and knocking young Rusher flat.

A large crowd gathered as Rusher was taken to St. Ann's Hospital, police directed traffic, and a wrecker was summoned to extricate the bus.  A crew under direction of Walter Stutte went to work almost immediately, cleaning up the building debris and fashioning a temporary "plug" for the huge gaping hole in the side of the building. 

Damage to the building was estimated at $3500.  The front end of the bus was badly smashed.