Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1898 — BIG FIRE AT CLEVELAND. [ARTICLE]

BIG FIRE AT CLEVELAND.

Loss to Business Firms Placed at Nearly a Million Dollars. Fire broke out in the business center of Cleveland, €>., at 5 o’clock Thursday afternoon, and, fanned by a high northwest wind, destroyed property worth .nearly $1,000,000. The Power block on Frank-, fort street, owned by J. B. Perkins, six 1 stories high and made of brick, was consumed above the second story and tae rear of the brick Wilshire block, six stories high, owned also by Mr.'Perkins, and fronting on Superior street, was burned. The fire started by the explosion of a large can of benzine in the lithographing establishment of Johns & Co., in the Power block. Windows were blowm out and several employes escaped with difficulty by the fire escapes and a bridge leading to the Wilshire block.