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.
One of the best contemporary accounts of the fire is found in the Harrisburg Evening News, 4 November 1924. It described in detail the efforts to save the buildings and contents before the flames consumed them. The article speculated that “incendiarism” was the cause of the fire, but provided no proof. The loss estimate by the Evening News was about half of what the Telegraph gave. Nevertheless, both articles noted the devastating loss to the town.
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Early Morning Fire Results In $100,000 Loss to Gratz; 5 Towns Sent Fire Apparatus
By Staff Correspondent
GRATZ, 4 November 1924 — The entire town, which has a population of 600, was threatened by an early morning fire, which destroyed the Gratz Hotel in the center of the village, the largest restaurant in the place, the only moving picture house in town, a stable, garage and seven barns, with crops. It is estimated the loss will run between $75,000 and $100,000.
Fire companies from five nearby towns sent motorized apparatus, for Gratz has neither firemen nor water protection. Harrisburg firemen, with four more pieces of apparatus, were on their way here at 4:25 o’clock this morning, when the conflagration was gotten under control.
The cause of the fire has not been determined, but incendiarism is suspected. Members of the family of Thomas Kerstetter, tenant proprietor of the hotel, were fast asleep when flames were discovered licking up along the one side of the three-story frame building, and were aroused with difficulty. The parents fled the building with their two children, Thomas Kerstetter, 6, and Bobby Kerstetter, 5, while their neighbors assisted in the removal of clothing, furniture and other valuables.
The properties completely razed by the flames included the hotel and the following other ones:
Hotel Cost $30,000
The hotel was owned by George Adams who, it is said, paid $30,000 for it a few years ago. The restaurant, moving picture house and one barn were the property of Harry Smith. The garage was owned by Earl Hoffman and Russell Hoffman. Adams’ stable in the rear of the hotel was destroyed. George Hepler lost two barns, one containing 100 tons of hay and the second, seventy-five tons. Daniel Miller and Harvey Miller lost a barn with 450 bushels of wheat. George Umholtz, Ira Rothermel and Daniel Koppenhaver also lost barns.
It was said here that virtually all the owners carried some insurance, but the aggregate will not cover the loss. The hotel was the Gratz Borough polling place and the election was to have been held there today.
The ballot box and the election supplies had been delivered to the hotel, ready for the opening of the polls this morning. Volunteer firefighters did not overlook them when they removed the personal property from the hostelry in the early stages of the fire. The ballots and other paraphernalia were taken to the Gratz Bank, and there the election board is conducting the election today.
Hunters Spread Alarm
A band of hunters took on the role of the modern Paul Revere and spread the fire alarm at 1:30 o’clock this morning when the flames were licking up an empty ice house and a “livery stable” in the rear of the hotel.
The hunters came this way from Valley View, and when they noted the reflection of the shooting flames, they fired their shot guns into the air several times. That aroused some folks, but the hunters wanted to be sure every one would awaken and they raced up and down Center Street, sounding the auto klaxon and making all the noise they could, at the same time yelling “fire.”
Blaze Seen 25 Miles
It upset the entire village Soon the whole population was on the street and folks were arriving from nearby communities. When the flames were at their height, the reflection in the sky could be seen for twenty-five miles or more. Folks in Halifax, twenty-one miles away, noted the red glow, it was reported here.
A number of telephone fire were burned off and others were cut to guard against falling on other electrical wires and this morning only two of the town’s thirty-tree telephone were in service. The telephone operator in Elizabethville was at her post calling for assistance and with her aid, apparatus was summoned from Valley View, Elizabethville, Wiconisco, Millersburg and Lykens.
The call to Harrisburg was sent out shortly after 2 o’clock when the whole town seemed doomed. Two hours later word came that Chief Verbeke had started with fifty Harrisburg firemen and four pieces of Harrisburg apparatus but by that time the flames were under control. A special railroad train of two coaches and two flat cars, containing apparatus of the Goodwill, Hope, Friendship and Mt. Pleasant companies was en route when the “stop” order was sent out.
Wind Fans Flames
A swirling wind which at times seemed to sweep into the town from all directions fanned the flames with a fury that made most every one think every property would be burned.
Burning embers were carried the distance of five and six city blocks. Volunteers formed a bucket brigade and looked after buildings on the outskirts while the firemen, with chemical streams were crackling the progress of the big fire.
Sparks set fire to shingles on the home of Monroe Klinger, a square from the fire zone but only slight damage was done until a volunteer arrived with his bucket. Several times the roof on the home of Mark Kebaugh, two blocks from the big fire, was ablaze but each time the brigaders put in effective work.
Save Frame Row
A large burning ember fell on a huge straw stack at the home of Charles Hoffman, on the outskirts of town, but that was too much for the volunteers to save. It was five blocks from the burning hotel and the volunteers spent their efforts on saving adjoining property.
Due west of the hotel is the home of Charles Klinger, one of a long row of frame houses. Several times the heat from the hotel fire was so great that flames broke out in the gable end of the Klinger’s residence. The Valley View firemen kept that in check until the Wiconisco firemen arrived with their pumper and they emptied several wells and cisterns in the immediate neighborhood while saving the frame row.
Store Ignited
Miller Brothers’ General Store, which is west of the hotel, also was ablaze several times, but the chemical streams snuffed out the flames before any material damage was done.
The excitement in the borough when the flames spread rapidly from one building to another was indescribable. Everyone showed a willingness to help, but in the absence of fire protection or any sort of water system, the home folks had to be content with saving what furniture they could until the visiting firemen put in their effective work.
A large percentage of the hotel furniture was removed, and much of the restaurant stock and fixtures was also saved, although Smith, the restaurant man, wasn’t able to save much of his furniture. Smith’s residence was in his restaurant building. With his wife and son Harold Smith he got out before the flames had spread to his place. There were no boarders or lodgers in the hotel last night, but Kerstetter’s two employees, Garvin Romberger and Emma Snyder were there.
Early arrivals at the fire said the flames broke out in the empty ice house at the rear of the hotel. There was some straw, that is used in packing ice, but Kerstetter said the building was empty and that it had not been opened yesterday. The general supposition is that if it wasn’t set on fire, a lighted cigaret, carelessly dropped by a pedestrian, may have fired the building which borders a much used footwalk.
From the ice plant the flames spread to the adjoining hotel stable and then to the hotel. From there the fire jumped southward across an alley to one of the Hepler barns, and the heat from that fired the Hoffman garage on the opposite side of Center street. Cars and most of the paraphernalia meanwhile had been removed from the garage.
Spread Two Ways
The spreading flames then shot in two different directions. Crossing the alley to the south, it fired the Smith restaurant and at the same time it had jumped to the Ira Rothermel barn, then to the second Hepler barn and after that to the Koppenhaver barn. When the hotel fire was at its height, the flames spread from that to the Miller Brothers’ barn, to the west of the hotel.
The losses suffered by Smith, the restaurant and moving picture man, has been variously estimated from $12,000 to $20,000. The “movie house,” though operated only two nights a week, was well patronized, being the town’s only amusement place of its kind.
The Gratz Hotel was about forty years old, in the opinion of older residents of the borough. It replaced a hostelry which was also destroyed by fire.
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Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.
The news story was obtained through the resources of Newspapers.com.