Fire discovered at noon in a stock room of the F.W. Woolworth in the Walker building on the West side of the Public Square caused damage which is estimated will run into the thousands of dollars and threatened an entire business block before it was finally brought under control after a four hour battle by an army of regular and volunteer fire departments and a detachment from the Marion CCC camp joined the Marion firemen in fighting the blaze.
As a result of this blaze which gutted the west section of the second floor of the Walker building, burning through the roof, damaged the walls and caused smoke and water damage to the Woolworth store stock estimated at a total loss, two other stores were closed Monday. They were Campbell Drug Store adjacent on the south and Burkhart’s Shoe store on the north. Neither sustained any fire damage but had some damage from smoke and water.
The drug store sustained further damage when a new flare up of the fire in the midst of the battle between the flames and the firefighters resulted in a decision to carry the drug store stock out of the building. The goods were stored in the lobby of the Orpheum Theatre. State’s Attorney Charles C. Murrah who occupied offices on the second floor of the Walker building was forced to seek new office rooms Monday as a result of the fire.
Although the blaze did no actual damage in the state’s attorney’s suite of offices, the rooms and office equipment including shelves of law books were damaged by smoke and water. The office furnishings were stored temporarily in the court house Sunday night. Office files in steel filing cabinets were not damaged but other files in wooden cabinets were soiled by smoke and water.
The fire, the second disastrous fire to strike Marion’s business district in seven months was discovered a few minutes past 12 o’clock noon Sunday by Harold Marshall, assistant mgr of the Woolworth store and Lee Williams, store stock man. They were working on the first floor when they heard noises upstairs in the stock room which sounded as if someone were walking there. They went upstairs to investigate. As they opened a door leading to the paint and household supplies store room on the northwest corner of the second floor of the building they were greeted by a rush of flames and smoke.
Fire Chief Harry Cash was just sitting down to a dinner of fried chicken at his apartment at the fire station at 12:30 when the fire alarm was received. He hurried from the dinner table to the wheel of the fire truck and arrived at the scene of the blaze when the downtown was practically deserted. The fire chief was alone in his first efforts to fight the blaze because he was the only man on duty at the time the call came in, and volunteers who answer fire calls were not yet on hand.
Entering the building where Marshall and Williams were waiting on him, Cash went to the second floor and found the blaze raging in a room partially filled with canned paint. While the two Woolworth employees handed fire extinguishers up to him he attempted to battle the blaze with extinguishers until he saw that the blaze was gaining. He returned to the truck and hooked up the pumps to a plug at the head of S. Market St. A few minutes later he was joined by Assistant Fire Chief Clint Boles and several volunteer men.
In response to a call for assistance, fire pumpers from Johnston City, Herrin and West Frankfort arrived in the order named and joined their equipment and personnel in the force already engaged in battling the blaze. Although the Frankfort pumper went out of commission soon after it hooked up, as many as six streams of water were brought into play on the blaze. The Johnston City pumper was stationed at the Marion Trust and Savings Bank corner and the Herrin pumper went into action from the plug at the intersection of N. Van Buren and W. Main Streets.
Hose lines were carried to the roofs of the buildings housing the Burkhart Shoe Store and the Campbell Drug Store and to the room of the one story buildings in the rear of the Burkhart store. Other streams of water were directed on the burning building from the square. The fire centered in the rear rooms of the second floor where it was first discovered.
By 2 o’clock the firemen appeared to have the fire beaten out in the second floor rooms but shortly the blaze flared up with a new intensity from the attic of the building. The big task of the firemen then became to direct enough water into the attic to keep down the blaze. Firemen with hose inside the building were unable to reach the source of the blaze in the closely constructed attic and the smoke and heat and uncertainty of the roof made it impossible to direct water directly from the roof of the burning building, the firemen chopped holes in the fire walls from the roofs of the adjoining buildings to make an opening for their hose lines. Shooting water through these holes brought the blaze under control about 4 pm.
It was another hour before they had completely wet down the smoldering embers against another flare up. Carried by an east wind, smoke seeping from the building was blown upon the square where it forced back the crowds representing almost the entire city which gathered to the fire scene. Arriving on the scene soon after the firefighting equipment went into play, a truck load of CCC camp workers gave the fire fighters valuable assistance. Not only did they stretch and patrol the fire line to keep back the crowds but many of them went to work on hose lines and remained on duty until the fires had been whipped.
Despite the many hundreds of people who jammed the fire scene there were no casualties. A man named Harris attached to the Walkathon at the Hangar received burns about the face when the fire rushed through a rat hole in the wall for a hose line on top of the Burkhart building where he was working as a volunteer.
CIPS company linemen stood throughout the fire to remove threatening wires leading to the west wall of the building which at times appeared about to fall. Power was cut off from the building soon after the fire was reported. Miss Ida Mae Simmons, cashier at the Woolworth store, fainted or was overcome by smoke fumes when she entered the building to make sure of the safety of her records. She was revived within a short time.
Mgr. V.A. Jones of the Woolworth store was attending a meeting of Woolworth Store managers at Olney at the time of the fire. Notified by phone he arrived at the store to see a mass of entwined fire hose on the street while smoke and flames were coming from the second floor windows and water was pouring down the steps to the second floor rooms several inches deep.
I.B. Richardson, district supervisor for the Woolworth Co. who was also at Olney arrived at the fire scene while the fire was still burning. Other Woolworth officials at St. Louis were notified immediately and were to arrive in Marion Monday to begin a survey of the loss. The building was owned by the T.A. Walker estate and the Woolworth Company. Stock was protected by insurance.
Dr. M.W. Balance and Dr. A.N. Baker, whose offices are located over the Campbell Drug Store, were at the fire scene soon after the blaze was discovered looking after equipment in their offices when it was feared they too might be swept by fire. Buildings on each side of the Walker building were protected by firewalls although the smoke got into both adjacent buildings and the office of Reuel Youngblood, Abstractor over the Burkhart’s shoe store was somewhat damaged by water also.
(Extracted from local newspapers and compiled by Harry Boyd, posted at http://www.marionfire.us )