Fire and explosion early Tuesday destroyed three North Market Street stores, damaged a half dozen others and injured one fireman. The stores wiped out in the complete destruction of the 50-year old two-story George B. Heyde building were the TVW Clothing Store, and the Dan Odum and Frank Hepler food markets.
Fire and debris hurled by the explosion broke windows in the Dunston, Harrison and Kimmel building across the street. Windows were also broken in the rear of the building on North Van Buren Street west of the destroyed buildings, and heat scorched the rear of the fire department.
No estimate of the total damage could be obtained from firemen or the various property owners but real estate and insurance men estimated it would be at least $200,000. Volunteer fireman Clint Boles was temporarily trapped under a brick wall blown out by the explosion but was not seriously hurt and continued to fight the fire. The destroyed building was owned by Phil Heyde of Olney and Miss Georgia Heyde of Marion.
The TVW clothing store was owned by Virgil Vaughn, Virgil Wilson and Ralph Thaxton. A Chinese laundryman, Lee Leong who lived over the Hepler store was the object of concern during the height of the fire when he could not be located, but reappeared later in the morning to report he had spent the night in Benton. All his personal effects except the clothes he wore were destroyed. The three stores occupying the burned building were a complete loss.
Accounts and other records in the Hepler store were either burned or covered by smoldering debris. The TVW accounts were retrieved after the fire was brought under control. An automobile registered in the name of I. Henderson, 206 S. 17th Street, Herrin, which was parked on the lot behind the Hepler store, was destroyed. Fireman attempted to push the car out of reach of the flames but it was locked, and they were unable to move it.
Telephone and power lines in the vicinity were wrecked, and service to a part of the business section was interrupted temporarily. Lines carrying power for operation of the telephone switchboards were broken, and the telephone company’s emergency generating equipment was thrown into service. Several power and telephone line poles caught fire.
Several parking meters were destroyed. Dan Odum said that he had left $500 in cash in the grocery store safe which was buried in smoking rubble. The grocery store stocks and fixtures in both food markets were consumed by the flames.
Also lost in the flames was several thousand dollars worth of Christmas merchandise for the Roy Campbell drug store which had been stored on the second floor of the Heyde building. Stores where heat or debris broke windows were the Weber Hardware Co., the vacant room formerly occupied by the Sears Order Store, Bill’s Liquor Store, Carl Sorgen Studio, Lee Crouse Jewelry Store and Kimmel Auto Supply.
Second floor windows in the block of buildings on the east side of North Market Street were also broken and window frames in the buildings owned by Miss Virginia Dunston and Mrs. Isom Harrison were scorched by the flames. The blaze was discovered at 3:45 am. Zuni Bradley, 104 W. Jackson St. said he saw flames from his bedroom window. He said flames were shooting from the rear of the Odum store at that time. He ran two blocks to the fire department.
Policeman Herman Burnett saw the smoke pouring from the building as he drove up North Market St. He radioed police headquarters, and ran up the stairway over Campbell’s drug store to warn persons living in apartments there. Unaware which rooms were occupied, he ran down the hall, knocking on the doors and shouting the alarm. He ran to the fire department and beat on the door. Firemen said they were awakened by persons pounding on both the front and rear doors of the fire station and the telephone ringing, all at the same time.
Fire Chief Herman May and Fireman Jack Whiting, accompanied by Clint Boles who had spent the night at the station as a volunteer fireman, rolled out a pumper and began laying hose. Whiting and Boles were manning a hose line at the rear of the building when an explosion blew out the rear wall. Both men were knocked down. Whiting was blown clear of the wall, but Boles was covered from the chest down by falling brick. One brick cut a small gash in his scalp. Whiting pulled the pile of bricks off Boles and the two laid another line of hose to replace the one which had been covered by the falling wall.
A few minutes later a second explosion blew the front wall out into North Market Street. Fire trucks from Herrin and West Frankfort joined the Marion trucks at the fire scene, and Johnston City firemen rushed to help. West Frankfort’s vertical ladder was used to throw water on top of the J.B. Heyde building south of the building where the fire was raging. The two buildings were separated by a firewall which prevented the blaze from spreading while firemen kept the flames from the adjoining roof.
Origin of the blaze was not determined. Dan Odum said he had closed his store about 6 pm and returned to get a letter to mail from the office about 8:30 pm. He said he had noticed nothing wrong at that time in the office, which is at the rear of the building. Odum said all his equipment was electric but the fire could have started from the wiring. He ruled out heating equipment and cigarettes as possible causes. He said an inventory taken two weeks ago showed he had $7,200 in merchandise. He said his fixtures were worth $6,000. He said there was $500 in the safe, but he didn’t know if the money had been destroyed or not as yet.
Odum said his merchandise and fixtures were insured but that he had no insurance on the money in the safe. Frank Hepler Tuesday morning estimated his loss in the fire would be between $15,000 and $20,000. He said he had “some insurance, but not near enough.” Hepler said current records kept in a cooler which he had thought would stand any fire had been destroyed. He said some records had been kept at his home in Johnston City.
Hepler said his shelves had been filled Monday afternoon to make way for new merchandise which had been delivered that day. Police and firemen formed a “bucket brigade” to get some of several hundred cans of coffee out of the debris at the front of the wrecked building. Walter Smith, the former partner of Hepler, now works out of Indianapolis. He maintains his home at Johnston City, and had an interest in the store fixtures. Members of the police force joined firemen in fighting the blaze, and remained on the job throughout the morning, rescuing valuable papers from the ruins and clearing the debris.
A street department “high lift” power shovel was called into action clearing North Market which had been blocked by the fallen wall. Sections of walls left standing by the flames were pulled down as a safety precaution. A group of Sea Scouts, accompanied by their skipper, Herb Ashley, joined in helping take up hose lines and removing the rubble. Fire Chief May attributed the explosions to accumulated gas in the building. He said the blast sounded like 10 cases dynamite going off all at once.
(Extracted from local newspapers and compiled by Harry Boyd, posted at http://www.marionfire.us )