In the early morning hours of 3 November 1924, a disastrous fire swept through the center of Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. The perfect storm of the failure of the borough council to approve the establishment of a water department or an organized fire department coupled with high winds, led to the spread of the fire across a street and alleys. The result was the leveling of the town center. Harry Smith, a local businessman and activist who lost his “life’s work” in the fire, was bitter in his criticism of the local officials who did not act prior to the fire. One of the best contemporary accounts of the fire is found in the Harrisburg Telegraph, 4 November 1924; it featured Smith’s denunciation of the council for failing to provide adequate fire protection. If it were not for the national news of the sweeping Republican victory in the election of 1924, the fire would have been the only major story in the Harrisburg region. As it was, it shared the front page with the election.
CENTER OF GRATZ SWEPT BY $200,000 FIRE
HEART OF TOWN IS DESTROYED DURING NIGHT BY FLAMES
Starts in Hotel on Which Insurance Lapsed and Destroys Fourteen Business Places and Homes
WELLS PUMPED DRY IN VAIN EFFORT TO CONTROL FIRE
Gratz, 4 November 1924 — Property valued at more than $200,000 partially covered by insurance was destroyed by flames which swept the center of the town today.
Scores of residents were forced to flee from their homes when threatened by the flames which promised to sweep the entire town. Wire communications were broken off shortly after the start of the fire.
Fire Guns to Rouse Town
The fire was discovered by Irvin Bixler and C. T. Uptegrave who were about to go hunting. Seeing smoke pouring from the two-and-a-half-story frame Union Hotel, owned by George Adams, they fired their guns into the air to awaken others and then attempted to extinguish the flames.
Bucket Brigade Futile
Unable to gain any headway with a bucket brigade, telephone calls were sent to neighboring towns for assistance and fire apparatus from Lykens, Millersburg, Wiconisco, Elizabethville and Valley View, responded. The only source of water, several wells, were pumped dry within the next few minutes and the firemen exerted their efforts to saving adjoining property.
Barns Ignite from Hotel
Unrestricted, the flames leaped from the Union Hotel, which had been covered by insurance until Friday, when the policy on the building had expired and had not been renewed. They spread to the barns of the Miller Brothers adjoining the hotel and then to two other barns of George Hepler, destroying the buildings as well as $40,000 baled hay in the Hepler barn.
Spread in Two Directions
Following destruction of the adjoining frame buildings, the fire spread in both directions to the properties of Haffner Brothers, Ira Rotharmel, G. A. Umholtz, A. S. Ritzman, Mrs. Elizabeth Copenhaver and the restaurant, store and movie house of Harry Smith.
Included in the properties destroyed were two garages, one storage warehouse and three barns, in addition to farm and automotive equipment.
Mud Banks Used to Stay Flames
Unable to check the fire owing to the lack of water available, calls were sent in for assistance from Harrisburg. In the meantime the flames continued to spread while citizens and spectators, who had gathered from towns within a radius of fifteen miles assisted in throwing up mud banks against the buildings. Shortly after 3:30 o’clock this morning the fire was put under control. Harrisburg firemen were notified while on their way to the fire.
Denounce Townspeople
Bitter denunciation of the short-sighted policy of the townspeope in refusing to support the organization of a water company, which would have insured the little town proper fire protection, was voiced by many of the leading citizens this morning, including Harry Smith, the most prominent member of the community.
Mr. Smith was a broken-hearted man as he stood and watched the smoking embers of his store and town hall, reduced to ashes, as he vainly tried to stop the advance of the flames.
“There goes the building of a lifetime,” said Mr. Smith, as he watched with smoke-bicared eyes the efforts of several firemen to push down threatening brick chimneys and leaning telephone poles.
“I don’t mean the physical property, either,” he continued, “but the efforts I have put in to make a Gratz a modern little country town. My store, as anyone in this district can tell you, was sort of the town center, and I had everything of the most modern design.
“Some time ago, I secured, in company with two other men, a charter for a water company here, but the town refused to go along.
“‘Our grandfathers got along with a bucket brigade, and we can do the same thing,’ they said. But it’s too late now, even though many of them realize this morning what fools they have been.”
Strong Criticism
Others who were strong in criticism of the refusal of the town to contribute to proper fire protection were Chief Burgess John Kissinger and Dr. W. E. Lebo, secretary of the town council.
Shortly after the fire started, Mr. Smith put in a call to Elizabethville, and the operator broadcast appeals for help to all the small communities nearby.
Elizabethville Responds
The first apparatus to respond was that from Elizabethville, manned by Fireman Romberger, who immediately went to work to save the house adjacent to the Union House. Shortly afterward, apparatus arrived from Valley View, Lykens and other towns.
Only the fact that the wind died down early this morning saved the entire town from destruction, the firemen said. At one time, during the height of the flames, burning embers and sparks were carried distances of nearly a thousand yards, lighting a hay pile on the Gratz Fairground at the eastern end of the town.
Time after time roofs of nearby houses would break into flames, only to be smothered with chemicals by hard-working firemen. Fighting desperately, the volunteer firefighters confined the flames to an area about a block and a half square. The center of Gratz is a smoking heap of ruins.
The Good WIll, Hope, Friendship and Mt. Pleasant fire companies of Harrisburg were enroute to Gratz on several flat cars forming a special train when word came that the fire was under control. An appeal to Harrisburg for help had been sent out about 2 o’clock, when it was feared the town was doomed.
When the Union Hotel went up in flames, firemen saved the ballot boxes, which had been delivered yesterday. They were moved to the bank, where the election booths were set up and where voting was carried on during the day, instead of at the appointed place.
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