East
St. Louis, Missouri
Deering Harvest Machine Co. Fire
March 21, 1904
BIG BLAZE AT EAST ST. LOUIS
DEERING HARVEST COMPANY'S PLANT WITH CONTENTS
ENTIRELY DESTROYED.
LOSS PLACED AT $150,000
Little More Than a Half Hour Necessary to Leave
the Building a Mass of Smouldering Embers.
East St. Louis, March 21. -- The four-story
warehouse of the Deering Harvest Machine Co. on
Railroad avenue near Main street in East St.
Louis was completely destroyed, with its
contents, shortly after noon Monday. The loss is
estimated at $150,000.
The fire started among a lot of twine in the
basement from an unknown cause.
The first discovery of the fire was at 10:30
o'clock Monday morning, but employees threw out
a quantity of the twine and thought they had put
out the fire. The fire department made no
investigation.
At 12:45, the twine was found again to be on
fire, and before an alarm could be turned in the
basement was in a blaze and fire was shooting up
the elevator shaft.
Within half an hour after the fire was
discovered, the four walls of the building had
fallen in.
A general alarm was turned in, but the fire
department could do no more than save adjoining
property, chief of which was the freight depot
of the Southern railroad.
Several freight cars standing on the tracks were
ignited, and, blazing, were hauled away by a
switch engine.
While the firemen were fighting the fire, the
team attached to ladder truck No. 2, stationed a
block away, started to run. They dragged the
heavy truck for five blocks, turning two corners
without accident and ended their run by driving
the tongue of the truck into the side of
a street car at Missouri and Collinsville
avenues. The truck was not badly damaged, and
the horses were not hurt.
Decatur Herald, Decatur, IL 22 Mar 1904
Transcribed by Jackie
Harral. Thanks Jackie!
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