The Goodall Hotel building and adjacent downtown business buildings were threatened by fire at 3 am on Saturday when a blaze broke out in a vault in the offices of Roberts Insurance Agency on the first floor. The alarm was turned in from the hotel when smoke from the room below penetrated to the hotel lobby above. Firemen entered through the front doors and extinguished the blaze but not before considerable damage had been done to the plaster of the building and to the furnishings of offices in the rooms by smoke. The blaze was confined almost entirely to the vault in which it originated. The vault is a concrete compartment constructed against the south wall of the section of the first floor occupied by the insurance agency. Although the origin could not be definitely determined, evidence pointed to electric light wiring which entered the vault. The compartment was not equipped with a door and was used principally as a storage room for old files of the insurance company which were to a large extent destroyed. The flames extended through the doorway of the vault to damage the floor and office furniture within a radius of several feet of the vault. Current records of the insurance company as well as books of Miss Mabel Todd, city school treasurer, were kept in a separate vault and were undamaged. The vault used for that purpose was closed with a huge steel door. The office of the Marion Water Co. and Howard’s news stand are located on the same floor with the insurance agency but sustained little permanent damage.

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