Wooster Fires
Table of Fires in Wooster, Ohio
Full Text Articles of Fires in Wooster, Ohio
- The Fire Fiend Visits Wooster Like a Thief in the Night, And Lays In Shapeless Ruins a Whole Business Block: The Block on the Southwest Corner of the Public Square Completely Destroyed by Fire A Blaze that Rivaled the Arcadome Fire in 1874 Probably the Work of an Incendiary [1]
- On the last Friday morning about one o'clock the fire fiend visited our city with almost startling vengeance. Coming like a thief in the night, it obtained full mastery of the situation before the alarm could be sounded and its disastrous progress stayed at the very beginning, and hence Wooster suffered one of the greatest conflagrations known to its history. The business block between the Public Square and the Central House, facing east on South Market Street, where the day before were well-filled store-rooms and busy merchants was completely demolished, nothing but a shapeless mass of charred ruins being left to tell the story of its former usefulness.
In disastrous extent and the complete loss and destruction of property it RIVALED THE ARCADOME FIRE Which laid in ruins the famous Arcadome building in 1874, at that time one of the finest buildings in the city.
At about one o'clock, or perhaps a little after, the fire broke out in the rear of the room occupied as a grocery store by J. B. Power, and worked its way into the store-room, to a barrel of gasoline, which exploded attracting the attention of Policeman {{Surname|Huber]], who gave the alarm, and aroused the people of the vicinity. Before the firemen reached the scene of the fire it had gotten under full headway, and the dry frame buildings, together with their inflammable contents, furnished excellent fuel for the leaping flames, whose lurid glare lit up the city until it was almost as light as day. The sparks which shot upward from the burning mass and floated over the city in a perfect cloud, presented a scene at once grand and imposing, and at the same time greatly endangered all the buildings in the neighborhood. The firemen, however, who promptly responded to the alarm, soon had THE ELEMENTS BATTLING.
For the mastery, and finally succeeded in confining the fire to the block in which originated. At first it seemed almost impossible to prevent it from spreading to other blocks, but the firemen with heroic pluck and constancy, ably assisted by the citizens, notwithstanding the bitter cold which froze the water to their clothing, until many of them were literally covered with ice, stand right by the fire until was finally forced to succumb. The fire had got under such headway before it was discovered that very little of the contents of the buildings were saved. It being at night quite a number took advantage of the excitement and confusion and did some wholesale pilfering, several being caught in the act of carrying goods off to convenient hiding places.
THE RESULT In looking over the result we find that ten business firms have been driven out, property to the amount of $35,000 or $40,000 being destroyed or rendered useless, on which there is an insurance amounting to about $18,000, divided among eleven companies. The following is a detailed statement of the losses and insurance --
James Lee, feed store, loss $1,200, insurance $800 in the Ohio Mutual.
Mrs. Philip Hine, building, loss $1,500; insurance $1,000 in the Delaware Mutual.
Foss & Schwartz, Wooster Brush Works, stock and building, loss $10,000, insurance $1,000 in the Urbana Mutual, and $1,000 in Wayne County Mutual.
Samuel Geitgey, two buildings and China Store, loss $8,000, insurance $1,000 in Know County Mutual, $2,000 in Columbiana County Mutual, and $2,000 in the Merchants and Manufacturers' of Mansfield.
References
- ↑ Wooster Republican, Wooster, Ohio. 1881 February 3, p.3.