Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1908 — GREAT CHICAGO FIRE, LOSS IS $1,700,000. [ARTICLE]

GREAT CHICAGO FIRE, LOSS IS $1,700,000.

Flames Jump from Wabash to Michigan Avenue and Do Enormous Damage. BIG STORES ABE DESTROYED. Alfred Feats & Co., John A. Colby, ac 4 Edison Keith & Co. Are the Chief Sufferers. One.of the most disastrous fires that have afflicted the towntown district of Chicago since 1874 occurred Tuesday evening In the block bounded by Wa bash and Michigan avenues and Madison and Monroe streets. Beginning at 6 o’clock and raging in full fury until 9:30, it practically de stroyed the buildings occupied by Alfred Peats & Co., John A. Colby & Son, and Edson Keith & Co., besides doing large damage to adjacent structures in both avenues. The loss is estimated at $1,700,000, In great part covered by Insurance. The fire was by no means extinguished at 9:30. It required all night fighting to prevent it from spreading. At 2a. m. it was under control. The Keith house and the adjoining business houses of Gage Bros. & Co. and Theo. Ascher Company, all of them millinery establishments, are especially heavy losers, because the salvage on such stocks Is considered nothing, and they arc able on Insure to lesfi than half full value.

Sixty Fire Enginen There. In point of number of engines at work and additional alarms the fire was the largest in Chicago since the summer of 1894. Tuesday night there were sixty steamers engaged In pumping water for the scores of streams thrown Into the burning buildings. The fire of 1894, which held the record until Tuesday night, was a lumber yard blaze which swept the district about Ashland avenue, Wood and 22d streets. Firemen declared the fire Tuesday night the largest within the loop district, In the matter of property loss, siuce the fire of 1874. The fire throughout was spectacular and attracted tens of thousands of persons to view It. The four elevated railroad systems of the city were paralyzed in their loop terminals, and the Cottage Grove and Indiana avenue surface lines were blocked for five hours. Theaters in the vicinity of the fire were almost deserted during the earlier acts of the plays. The fire started in the rear of the Alfred Peats Company’s building, climbed rapidly from floor to floor, and within a few minutes after It had been discovered the flames were on Wabash avenue, which the building faces, while trains crowded with people going to their homes rushed through the roaring furnace. One fireman was slightly injured, bat otherwise the record Is free from casualties, In spite of the terrific sweep of the flames and the sharp cold of tbe night, made more bitter by a northwest gale. / Fire Losses and lasaranee. The huildlngg yrhlch were destroyed by the Are and the firms which occupied them are aa follows: Alfred Peats Company, wall paper, 144 Wabash avenue, five floors; total loss, $250,000. John A* Gel by & Sons, furniture, 148 Wabash avenue, six floors; loss, $200,000.

Edson Keith & Co., wholesale milliners, 132-134 Michigan avenue, seven floors; loss, $600,000. Other firms which suffered losses, principally from smoke and water, are: Ynwman A Erbe Company, J3B Wabash avenue, letter files and cabinet*; loss, $5,000. The Frank Morris Book Shop. 152 Wabash avenue; loss, $3,000. Gage Bros., 129 Michigan arena*, wholesale milliners; loss, $25,000. Theodore Ascher Company, 130 Michigan avenue, wholesale milliners ? loss, $25,000. John A. Bryant Company, pianos, second floor, 140 Wabash avenue; loa*, $5,000. - Carl Netacliert, artificial flowers, 140 Wabash avenue; loss, $5,000. Powers building, Monroe and Wabash avenue; loss, SLOOO. Remington Typewriter Company, Aral floor, 154 Wabash avenue; loan, $5,000 Home Club lunchroom, first floor, 154 Wabash avenue; loss. $2,000. Except In the three structure# which were destroyed by the fire, the other losses were by smoke and water.