A fire at ten o’clock Tuesday morning in the Masonic building at the head of S. Market St. on the public square threatened to be a re-occurrence of the fire which badly damaged the building a few months ago but was extinguished with much additional loss. The fire originated among a pile of papers in a closet on the second floor of the building. Smoke from the closet filled the second floor and spread to the third floor and poured out of the open windows of both stories. Firemen entered the building with a small hose from the booster pump on the fire truck and used as little water as possible in order to prevent water damage to the bakery on the first floor of the building. After several minutes fighting of the flames the fire was extinguished, but smoke continued to pour out of the building for a considerable time afterwards. The building at the time of the fire Tuesday had not been repaired since the previous fire which wrecked the third floor interior. The latest fire burned the walls of the closet where the fire originated and burned through the lathing of the plaster to the third floor above the closet.

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