Scenes of Yesteryear-Fire! Yes, There Was Something Very Suspicious

Scenes of Yesteryear-Fire! Yes, there was something very suspicious going on that night of August 31, 1922. A new horse barn on the Dunn County Fair Grounds had been set ablaze by some mysterious hand, and the Menomonie Fire Department men were hard at work quelling the fire with a 1000 foot long hose attached to a water hydrant a thousand feet away. That was when F. P. Mclean, the president of the First National Bank, perhaps driving east on Main to check on the fire at the fairgrounds, noticed the blaze at second and Main Streets, and sped up to tell the firefighters that the Teare women’s clothing store, was on fire! A small contingent of firefighters continued to fight the fire at the fairgrounds as the rest of the force rushed to fight a now raging fire in the Teare building. More men were needed so the North Menomonie hose company, all volunteers, were called to help fight the fire. Tenants living on the second floor of the dress shop were fleeing the building as the fire fighters arrived, Miss Scoucar, a faculty member at Stout Institute, made it safely, as did Martha Geddes, the mother of Janet Geddes, was able to escape from the building. Janet, also faculty member at Stout, began to flee with her mother, but turned back to her room to retrieve some personal items, but by then her attempt to escape was blocked by the rapidly advancing fire and smoke in the hallway leading to the stairs. To her rescue came fireman A. W. Holt who, when stymied at first by the heat and fire in the hallway, tried again by returning outside and mounting the fragile awning extending from the building. He entered through a second floor window and he was able to carry Janet Geddes out on to the awning and then down a ladder to safety. Luke Huber, a Menomonie High School athlete, attempted to assist residents exiting the building but, blinded by the smoke, he ran down a hallway and into a closed door where his face was slashed by the glass window in the door. Fortunately another tenant, Mrs. Fladoes, and her son, had left the building before the fire had started. Looking back it is a miracle that no one lost their life in this raging, unstoppable fire that not only destroyed the Teare building, but went on to level adjacent wooden buildings until it met the solid brick wall of the Arcade Building. While no lives were lost, there were twenty-four people who either lived or worked in the fire-leveled buildings. B. R. Teare, owner of the clothing store, lost $15,000 worth of stock and of course, the $18,000 accessed value of the venerable 50 year old building. The estate of David Stori, owner of store fronts on the ground floor of the second floor opera house suffered a $25,000 loss. By that time the opera house had, as one source reports, “One of the finest dancing floors in the Northwest” now destroyed by fire. Business tenants that occupied the ground floor of the opera house included the Menomonie Laundry Co. where $500 worth of damage to its business occurred and barber I. W. Nesser who lost his chair and equipment to a tune of $700. Next door was Bertha McGroth’s women’s clothing store that was destroyed with no property loss estimate reported. In the same building, to the west was John Meyer’s tailor shop where over $900 worth of clothing destined for customers was destroyed. Jim Holstein’s meat market lost over $1,500 worth of equipment and produce in the fire. Next door the brick-clad Arcade building, with such business tenants as the Boston Drug Store, had over $1,000 in water and smoke damage, and C. M. Peddycoart, manager of the Golden Rule five and dime store, reported $100 in damages. Although all of the wooden structures on the site were a total loss, the fact that there was virtually no wind that night saved other buildings in the area. The Dunn County News noted, “ showers of sparks and flaming brands carried for blocks in all directions, falling on roofs of surrounding buildings.” Across the street the Menomonie post office was damaged when the heat of the fire pealed the paint off the front of the building and the paint on the windows of the Stout home economics building at the rear of the Teare building. There were many local citizens, and they probably were right, who believed that the fire at the fairgrounds was set as a distraction for the Menomonie Fire Department. Once involved in fighting that fire, the eruption of this mysterious fire at Second and Main Street delayed the ability to respond by the fire department to gather up another rack of hoses and equipment to rush back downtown. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, a call was made to the Eau Claire Fire Department. An Eau Claire fire fighting unit arrived about an hour later, too late to do anything but help subdue the pile of glowing embers that were all that remained of the home and workplaces of twenty-four owners and tenants. After glow of the fire completely disappeared there was time to figure out the coincidence of both the Fairground barn fires and the torrential flames that leveled the buildings at 2nd and Main streets. It was determined that both fires were set by someone. That someone waited until the department was fully involved in the barn fire, and then set fire to buildings that stood a short block away from the fire station located on Crescent Street and Second Street. Who was the culprit? As far as I know that question was never answered. CUTLINE… When Menomonie photographer George Belair snapped this photograph of the fire from the roof of the Heller Building (today’s Lee Building), the fire was in its final phases. Flames still lit up the scene and revealing still standing fragments of the Stori Opera House façade and the narrow site of Holstein’s meat market was yet to be totally engulfed by the raging fire. All but the east end of the Arcade Building is hidden in the dark of night where a ladder, not easily seen in this photo, allowed the cluster of four or five fire fighters, shown here huddled together and standing between two stone finials of the Arcade, to drench the last phases of the blaze from the roof of the brick building that still stands today. Note the lone ladder laying prone on the brick surface of Main Street. There was little use for it in this conflagration, but the hose snaking across the street supplied the water for the hose aimed by the men on the roof of the Arcade. I am sure at this stage of the fire the men on the roof were not so concerned about putting out the fire, letting it burn out, but watched for and controlled any threat of the fire spreading to other buildings in the area. .

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