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Showing posts with the label Fires

The Massive East 12th Street Market Fire

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Located at 12th and French Streets, the 12th Street Market opened in 1927 and operated until it was destroyed by fire in 1951. People came from all around the city to shop at the 12th Street Market. They also came in droves to the market’s conflagration, when it was struck by lightning. Eleven fire department companies fought the consuming fire. Twelfth Street was jammed with people, almost from curb to curb, as the many clubs in the area were emptied of their members; and the late movie had just ended at nearby theaters. Daylight brought even more people to the scene. About 15 policemen were on duty keeping thousands of curious people out of the gutted structure. Traffic on 12th Street was in a continual snarl due to motorists who drove by to see the burned-out shell of a building. The Massive East 12th Street Market Fire. An aerial view of the market after the fire. The market after the fire at the corner of 12th and French Streets. The market after the fire at the

M. V. Irwin Company Warehouse Fire

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In the early evening hours of February 13, 1958, the fire department responded to a spectacular warehouse fire on the corner of West 12th Street and Irwin Drive. The temperature in the city that day was 14 degrees, making the firefighters’ efforts to put out the fire rather difficult. The warehouse itself valued at a million dollars had in its storage some $7,000,000 worth of television sets, along with drums of gasoline, and chemicals, all stored together near an area that had considerable electrical wiring. All of the city’s fire equipment and firefighters responded to the roaring inferno . The city had twelve firefighters on the scene. Two of them suffered injuries at the fire, one firemen slipped on the icy surface while fighting the fire and was admitted to Veterans Hospital; the other, was sent reeling from the percussion of exploding drums, but was not seriously hurt. The fire raged on for several hours, with periodical explosions caused by the drums of gasoline and chemicals th

Union City Fires

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The Union City Feed Mill fire in Union City happened in 1938. This fire was one of many fires that struck the borough within a 70 year period of a Conflagration that destroyed scores of businesses. In 1938 the Feed Mill fire appears to have been the initiative to creating the Volunteer Fire Department. After the business district began to build up in the 1870s Union City experienced some bad fires. One of the worst happened on April 24, 1879, when fire roared down both sides of Main Street, from French Creek, south to the corner of South Street. It did $75,000 worth of damage, but most businessmen resolved to rebuild and did so. A major fire started in Union City on January 19, 1885, in a row of frame buildings, opposite the post office owned by the Ezra Cooper estate. It did $27,000 worth of damage. The chair companies in Union City provided some lasting fuel for fires. On July 25, 1881, a fire started in the boiler room of the Heineman and Cheney Chair Factory on the West side of to