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Fire at Railway Site
1887
Watertown
Daily Times,
The
most extensive conflagration that ever visited Watertown occurred last Thursday
night at 11:30 o'clock, by the burning of the rail mill, machine shop,
carpenter shop and blacksmith shop of the Chicago,
Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway situated at the junction in the Third
ward. The flames were first discovered by the watchman issuing from the boiler
room of the rail mill, and the application of persons first on the scene of a
number of pails of water found about the building had no effect on the f ire.
The structures being all frame and connected one with the other, except the
blacksmith shop, which was brick and separated from the carpenter shop by a few
feet, the destruction of the building was rapid owing to the inflammable material
composing them, and the dry and tinder-like condition of everything at the
time. The Phoenix company with the Silsby engine was promptly on the ground and
performed splendid work as usual, but all the heroic and well directed efforts
of the Phoenix boys were futile to stay the fearful progress of the flames
spreading with rapidity and covering a space so wide as to be beyond the
capacity of their energy to circumvent it.
The
Pioneer fire company did not reach the fire for some time after the Phoenix boys
arrived on the ground, being delayed by going out of the way on account of
misjudging the location of the fire and to climax the matter the whiffle trees
broke on the route and the horses having to be abandoned, the Ahrens engine had
to be hauled by hand.
To
confine the fire within a small space, was the only hope of getting it under
subjection as the water supply at hand was hardly adequate to cope with a fire
of the magnitude it soon assumed after being first discovered. Daylight, Friday
morning dawned upon the entire plant being a mass of ruins, thoroughly wiped
out with the exception of the brick walls left standing on the blacksmith shop,
the two tall chimneys for the rail mill and a portion of the lathes and
machinery of the machine shop, forming a sad scene of desolation and
destruction, that will ever remain fresh in the minds of all who with sorrowful
hearts witnessed it.
And
now as to the direct results of the fire upon the city. There was on a average
about 200 men employed in the shops destroyed, putting up a payroll of from
$8,000 to $10,000 per month, and the loss of this to our city will indeed be a
severe blow, effecting seriously the business interests of the place.
