Fire which broke out in the basement of the Geo. K. Pride building on West Main shortly after 1 am Monday, left the Pride Studio and Gift Shop practically ruined, put the cables of the Western Union next door out of commission and filled the upstairs apartments with smoke driving the occupants from their beds.
Damage to the photo studio and gift shop was estimated by Mr. Pride at $3000 to $4000 and although no estimate of the damage to the building could be made off hand it will probably amount to as the damage to the stock and fixtures. Both building and contents were protected by insurance.
Firemen arriving on the scene found a rear window raised and the screen torn away while inside the building two cash registers had been rifled of $15 change. This circumstance gave rise to the theory held by Mr. Pride that the building was set afire by a burglar.
The fire originated in the basement under the north part. Discovered by Sheriff Oren Coleman and he fired a gun into the air. The shots aroused the occupants of the apartments who hurried down the front stairway. The hall outside their rooms was so filled with smoke swelling up from the stairway that they could not see the stairs were forced down a back stairway. Mr. and Mrs. Pride, Mr. and Mrs. Ruel Bracy and Miss Lois Motsinger occupied the rooms upstairs.
To prevent the smoke which was inside the rooms on the ground floor from breaking the plate glass window of the gift shop, a window in the rear of the studio was broken. The cutting strength of the smoke and gas was intensified by the burning of photo film in the film storage room. Gas caused by the burning of the film made the smoke in that part of the building unbearable.
When the dark room of the photo studio and the film began to blaze the fire threatened for the first time to get beyond the control of the firemen. A call was sent for the Johnston City Dept. With the fire burning up from the basement and the photo dark room in the center of the building, the firemen fought the blaze from above as well as from the ground by taking the hose up the front stairway through the smoke. There in the hallway the fire was stopped. At a single place in the middle of the hallway did the fire break through.
Water got into several of the rooms but several of them escaped damage from water or smoke. One hole was burned through into the Western Union office but nothing was damaged by fire inside the office itself.
Mr. Pride announced he would be looking for a temporary location at once. He was loud in his praise Monday of the work done by the firemen and volunteers. Inhaling the smoke and gas from the studio was like swallowing knife blades, Mr. Pride said.
(Extracted from local newspapers and compiled by Harry Boyd, posted at http://www.marionfire.us/ )