FIRE DAMAGES GREAT WESTERN CEREAL PLANT - 1903

HEATH

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 2/17/2017 at 10:15:26

Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, Jan. 2, 1903

LOSS IS GREAT
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FIRE DAMAGES WESTERN CEREAL
PLANT TO THE EXTENT OF
$75,000 TO $100,000
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Fort Dodge, Jan. 2 – The monster elevator of the Great Western Elevator Companies mill at this point was burned to the ground last evening. One hundred thousand bushels of oats and a quantity of valuable machinery were destroyed by the fire and the loss will reach from $75,000 to $100,000, fully covered by insurance. The cause of the fire is a mystery. It was probably started from a chance spark from machinery and the flames, fanned from a strong south wind, spread like wild fire. The elevator is connected with the main mill building by a closed passage way, and for a time the mill proper was endangered, but the plucky work of the firemen and the mill employees, armed with hose which the mill is fitted, confined the flames to the elevator, the loss of which will be total. The employees who were in the elevator escaped without difficulty. They fought the fire with extinguishers until driven off by the heat of the flames. A. C. Heath, one of the managers of the mill, stated this evening that the elevator will probably be rebuilt but the mill will necessarily be closed, and seventy-five men are thrown out of work. The elevator was one of the largest of its kind in the state. It has a capacity of 175,000 bushels. The mill has been one of the chief manufacturing points of the Great Western Cereal Company. The mill is that originally operated by H. R. Heath & Sons, who came to Fort Dodge from Des Moines. It is under the management of C. H. and A. C. Heath.