Two fires in the city Monday night caused considerable loss, one of them damaging a residence and second burning the office at the Family Theatre. The theatre fire evidently caused by defective wiring originated in the office of the theatre just north of the entrance.

The blaze was kept in front of the building where windows were broken out and the office gutted by the flames. The theatre is dark except on Friday and Saturday night and there has been no show there since the previous Sat. night. The Family Theatre is located in the Harry Bracy building and the second floor was until a few months ago occupied by a rooming house. At the time of the fire, however, the second floor was vacant.

The fire reached that floor at only one point and there the firemen stopped it before any considerable damage was done. The building in which the fire was extinguished is separated by the building adjacent on the north housing the Bryan Store and a rooming house upstairs only by a nine inch wall, and a spreading of the flames from the theatre would have meant a big loss in that block.

(Extracted from local newspapers and compiled by Harry Boyd, posted at  http://www.marionfire.us/ )