Origin of the blaze, which was discovered at 12:30 A.M. and drove 32 persons from their beds in the hotel, was unknown. Although the fire appeared at first to be located in the basement of the Economy Variety Store, Fire Chief Orlie Ing expressed the opinion it started in the hotel furnace room. The $200,000 estimate of the fire loss was made by insurance men.
The amount of insurance carried on the buildings and contents was estimated at $100,000. Fire departments of Marion, Herrin, West Frankfort and Carbondale fought the fire for six hours. At 11 A.M. Tuesday smoldering ruins broke into flames again, and firemen had to resume the fight.
The buildings destroyed were owned by Louie Gudder and W.T. Hudspeth. Destruction was complete. Tuesday’s dawn found only the skeleton fragments of brick walls standing where one of the city’s most valuable blocks had stood the day before.
The fire was discovered at 12:30 A.M. by Ralph N. Adams, former Circuit Clerk, who managed the hotel. He smelled smoke in the hotel lobby, and called the fire department. He then notified the guests, and all left the building without panic. At that time the fire all seemed to be in the basement of the Economy Variety Store.
Fire Chief Orlie Ing spotted a Marion fire truck on Madison Street near the post office, and ran a line of hose to the Economy store basement from the rear. He sent out a call for assistance to Herrin and West Frankfort. Twenty-two minutes after receiving the call a West Frankfort pumper went into action from a position at the southeast corner of the square. A Herrin truck hooked up directly in front of the hotel building.
With three lines of hose pouring water into the front and rear of the Economy Store, firemen appeared to make headway against the fire which they could not see through the black smoke which poured from the building. Firemen carried one line of hose into the basement of the Economy store, far inside the building without finding the source of the fire, and were finally forced back out of the building by the stifling smoke.
At 2 A.M. the fire had not yet broken out where it could be seen, and a momentary lessening of the billowing smoke gave rise to a belief among owners of the business houses involved that the fire was under control. But by this time, the fire which was eating away far within the interior of the basement of the hotel building had burned its way upward beyond the reach of the fire hose, and attacked the ground floor rooms.
Almost at the same time that flames were seen licking the steps of the hotel stairs, the fire broke through windows of the ground floor level on the east side of the building and through a wooden partition separating the furnace room from the store rooms on the East Main Street side. Rapidly devouring the ancient wooden floors and stairways which gave way to make a chimney for the raging inferno, the blaze showed itself through the roof of the three-story section of the building.
As the first glare of light was reflected in the huge smoke clouds above the building, Chief Ing sent out a call for the Carbondale fire department. A truck which arrived from Carbondale went into action from a hydrant at the head of South Market Street. By then all three stories of the hotel were a mass of flames. The dense smoke inside the Economy store had given way to blazing heat.
The Virgil Center store to the south was afire, and firemen who had placed a ladder against the Hudspeth building to carry the Carbondale hose to the roof, retreated to the roof of the gas company building across an alley to the south. From there they played streams of water upon the Hudspeth building, with no hope of doing more than keep the blaze from leaping across the alley.
At that time firemen had been forced to retreat from the East Main Street side of the hotel building and shortly afterwards the north wall of the building fell into the street. Then the east wall of the third story structure toppled on the roof of the Marion Baking Co., building owned by A.B. McLaren. A portion of the south wall of the Hudspeth building fell into the alley adjacent.
Windows in the Warder building on the north side of East Main Street and in the gas company building south of the Hudspeth building were broken by the tumbling walls. The west walls all remained standing, but the front of the hotel building was pulled down early Tuesday to eliminate danger of its falling on persons in the square. A wide area was roped off by police as a precaution against injury to sight seers.
Throughout the night the regular firemen from Marion and out of town departments were assisted by volunteers who manned the hose lines in the cold wind that fanned the flames. All members of the police force remained on duty throughout the night, assisting firemen and handling the traffic. With hose lines from five pumpers strewn across the east side of the square, automobile traffic was halted and scores of cars which had arrived at the fire scene early could not be moved until the hose lines were taken up after daylight Tuesday.
Throughout the battle with the flames, hundreds of men and women stood and watched. Women wearing cloaks thrown over house coats or house pajamas were in evidence everywhere. As the blazing interior of the building illuminated the sky, and caused the gaping windows to stand out in relief against the brick walls of the doomed structure, the red mass of flames was punctuated by the white flash of amateur cameramen’s bulbs recording the worst fire in many years.
The fire which lighted the sky could be seen for many miles. A motorist driving to Marion from Harrisburg saw the light, and thought Crab Orchard was being swept by fire. As the various property owners took stock of their losses there was much speculation as to future plans, and store operators were already looking for new locations.
As for the hotel building itself, said to be insured for $35,000, no definite statement was forthcoming. Louie Gudder, the owner, had been out of town since Sunday. Members of his family said they had no idea what future plans for the building site would be made. F.E. Parks of the Parks Pharmacy estimated his loss at $15,000.
Virgil Center said his stock inventory was $10,000 on Jan. 1, and that considerable stock had been added since. The Economy Variety Store stock was appraised at a similar figure.
(Extracted from local newspapers and compiled by Harry Boyd, posted at http://www.marionfire.us )