150 Years 1887-1901 The Dalles THE DECADES OF HISTORY PART THREE OF THE DALLES CHRONICLE’S TEN-PART SERIES. April 27, 2007 Front page Part 1 WORK OF FIRE BUGS THEY TRY TO BURN DOWN J.T. PETERS’ PLANING MILL – THREE HORSES BURNED TO DEATH. AT 3:00 O’CLOCK THIS MORNING FIRE WAS STARTED IN THE REAR OF DUNHAM’S DRUG STORE. A MEETING OF CITIZENS CALLED AND COMMITTEES APPOINTED FOR THE PROTECTION OF LIFE AND PROPERTY. Still another fire started last night at about 6:50 o’clock in the barn of J.T. Peters’ and Co., on the river front, about 200 yards from the U.P. passenger depot. Among the first to observe it were the men belonging to the Forepaugh circus and from that moment till the fire was hopefully conquered, these men, tired and weary as they must have been with their own labors, fought like heroes to subdue the flames and save the threatened property. For a time it seemed as if the planing mill, belonging to the same establishment, must succumb to the flames and it was only by the hardest kind of work that it was saved. In the barn were three work horses, a lot of hay and grain, sash material, tools, oil, etc., and everything went up in the flames; besides several thousand feet of lumber, the whole involving a loss of about $1500, partially insured. The circus boys broke in the doors of the building, which were securely locked, only to find that the fire had taken possession to such an extent that it was impossible to reach them. It is impossible to account for the origin of the fire also. No one had been in the building, so far as we have been able to learn, for hours before, and if it was the work of an incendiary and it was his intention to destroy all that is left of the East End, he certainly showed good judgment in his selection of the place to start the fire. As it was, had the wind blown in the prevailing direction it would have been impossible to have saved the planing mill, and with it would have gone the passenger and freight depots, the Moody warehouse, the Curtis flouring mills, and everything left of Wednesday’s fire in the east end. ¶ Scarcely had the weary citizens of The Dalles laid themselves down to snatch a little well earned rest from labor and anxiety, when a fourth alarm broke the stillness of the night. It was a little before three o’clock this morning and this time the fire was located in the west end, at the rear of the Michaelbach building, corner of second and Union. The fire started in a large wooden porch and caused great excitement among the lodgers in the building, nearly all of whom had been victims of last Wednesday’s fire. Charley Graham promptly closed the iron shutters at the back of the building and to this as well as the prompt action of the fire department, assisted by the company’s hose is due to the fact that building is not now a mass of ruins. Again fortune favored us with still air, and the fire was soon under control. The loss this time is only trifling, but it might have been the complete ruin of the west end of the city and all the business houses that are left. We do not wish to anticipate the results of the investigation which the council proposes to make as to the origin of this last fire, but if the statement of Mrs. Brittain is true, and we have no reason to doubt it, it was certainly started by two unknown men whom she alleges she saw, and then in their efforts to escape dash past her so closely that they almost touched her. Mrs. Brittian had seen them three or four hours before the fire was started and suspecting their intentions was diligently on the watch, but in spite of everything, they made their way over the yard fence and the first thing she heard was the noise of their fleeing feet accompanied by the hissing of the fire. But she saw the men so distinctly that she was able to see that one had no shirt collar while the other wore a dark neck tie, and she believes she would know the men if she saw them again. Mrs. Brittian immediately screamed an alarm and the men hastened to search for the criminals but without avail. To Be Continued. Incoming and Outgoing messages protected by Trend Micro PC-cillin program