By Chuck Sterling
Editor
A few days shy of 100 years have passed since a pair of fires on the same day a year apart swept through businesses in South Haven, and it’s still a mystery who started them.
Monday, April 11, will mark the 100th anniversary of the second fire, which destroyed a number of business buildings on the west side of Oak Avenue, or Main Street, on April 11, 1911.
They were the ones that escaped the first fire on April 11, 1910, a much more devastating blaze that destroyed 11 businesses on the east side of the same street.
Chris Jeppesen of Kimball, who put together the South Haven centennial history book in 1988, says she tried to find out who set the fires but couldn’t and the question remains unsolved.
“As far as I’m concerned it’s never been solved because I couldn’t find it,” she said.
The first fire was big news in the Thursday, April 14, 1910, Annandale Advocate, which carried a front-page story headlined “Bad Blaze Sweeps Town.”
“The business portion of South Haven was practically wiped out by fire at an early hour Monday morning and 11 business firms that closed their doors as usual after business hours Saturday evening saw the flames lay waste to their prospects before opening time on Monday morning,” the story said.
“At about four o’clock Monday morning fire was discovered in the hardware store of the Central Lumber Company and in spite of hard work on the part of the residents with the limited means at hand the destructive element had soon spread.”
The fire destroyed “Kurtzenacker’s store, the State Bank building, Kite’s saloon, the post office building and Gust Warner’s jewelry store, the hotel owned by John Tufts and run by Frank Cleveland, G. Strecker’s meat market, B. Blackmer’s confectionery and the barber shop building owned by Alison Noyes and occupied by Ed Wiggend.”
A couple of barns and several ice houses and store rooms were also consumed by the flames.
“It took everything on that side” of the street, Jeppesen said, and the loss was $40,000.
“As to the origin of the fire, the people of South Haven are convinced that it is the work of someone with a grievance toward the town who deliberately used this method of ‘getting even’ for some fancied wrong,” the paper said.
By fall, the burned wooden buildings were replaced with brick block structures, according to a presentation by Jeppesen to the Annandale History Club in 2006.
Then a year to the day at almost the same hour as the 1910 fire, another blaze burned everything on the west side of the street, she said.
The Advocate carried the story Thursday, April 13, 1911.
“The fire was first discovered about four o’clock by parties who were going to the depot to meet the 4:20 train and it appeared to have just started in the lumber yard and bore every evidence of incendiary origin.
“The yards and warehouse of the Central Lumber company were soon all ablaze and the post office building next in line was given a severe test but, being of solid brick, did not take fire.
“The next building, owned by George Kites and which has been occupied until recently by C.F. Petterson as a general store and at the time of the fire by Fossberg Bros. in the same business, caught from the sparks and heat and was soon consumed by flames.”
A barn building in the same block also burned, and total damage was estimated at $25,000.
Strong suspicion
The story added that “local authorities have strong suspicion of certain parties being responsible for (both) fires and that it is likely the guilty persons will be prosecuted.”
The lumber company built a yard in a new location surrounded by a steel enclosure, and the Fossbergs built a new brick building, according to Jeppesen’s presentation to the history club.
The old business buildings that now occupy both sides of Main Street were built to replace those lost in the fires, she said.
They include the now-vacant building at the southwest corner of Grant Street and Oak, which used to house the general store that Jeppesen and her husband, Jerry, owned from 1985 to 1994. She started working there in 1970 when it was Fairway Foods and general store owned by Jerry’s father, Bob.
Jeppesen said she talked to “many, many different people” during her research on the history book trying to find out who set the fires.
At least two people told her they believed the second one was deliberately set because of anger over the first one, she said.
But “there is just no word of it ever being solved,” and she wasn’t able to find the answer to the mystery herself.
A few days shy of 100 years have passed since a pair of fires on the same day a year apart swept through businesses in South Haven, and it’s still a mystery who started them.
Monday, April 11, will mark the 100th anniversary of the second fire, which destroyed a number of business buildings on the west side of Oak Avenue, or Main Street, on April 11, 1911.
They were the ones that escaped the first fire on April 11, 1910, a much more devastating blaze that destroyed 11 businesses on the east side of the same street.
Chris Jeppesen of Kimball, who put together the South Haven centennial history book in 1988, says she tried to find out who set the fires but couldn’t and the question remains unsolved.
“As far as I’m concerned it’s never been solved because I couldn’t find it,” she said.
The first fire was big news in the Thursday, April 14, 1910, Annandale Advocate, which carried a front-page story headlined “Bad Blaze Sweeps Town.”
“The business portion of South Haven was practically wiped out by fire at an early hour Monday morning and 11 business firms that closed their doors as usual after business hours Saturday evening saw the flames lay waste to their prospects before opening time on Monday morning,” the story said.
“At about four o’clock Monday morning fire was discovered in the hardware store of the Central Lumber Company and in spite of hard work on the part of the residents with the limited means at hand the destructive element had soon spread.”
The fire destroyed “Kurtzenacker’s store, the State Bank building, Kite’s saloon, the post office building and Gust Warner’s jewelry store, the hotel owned by John Tufts and run by Frank Cleveland, G. Strecker’s meat market, B. Blackmer’s confectionery and the barber shop building owned by Alison Noyes and occupied by Ed Wiggend.”
A couple of barns and several ice houses and store rooms were also consumed by the flames.
“It took everything on that side” of the street, Jeppesen said, and the loss was $40,000.
“As to the origin of the fire, the people of South Haven are convinced that it is the work of someone with a grievance toward the town who deliberately used this method of ‘getting even’ for some fancied wrong,” the paper said.
By fall, the burned wooden buildings were replaced with brick block structures, according to a presentation by Jeppesen to the Annandale History Club in 2006.
Then a year to the day at almost the same hour as the 1910 fire, another blaze burned everything on the west side of the street, she said.
The Advocate carried the story Thursday, April 13, 1911.
“The fire was first discovered about four o’clock by parties who were going to the depot to meet the 4:20 train and it appeared to have just started in the lumber yard and bore every evidence of incendiary origin.
“The yards and warehouse of the Central Lumber company were soon all ablaze and the post office building next in line was given a severe test but, being of solid brick, did not take fire.
“The next building, owned by George Kites and which has been occupied until recently by C.F. Petterson as a general store and at the time of the fire by Fossberg Bros. in the same business, caught from the sparks and heat and was soon consumed by flames.”
A barn building in the same block also burned, and total damage was estimated at $25,000.
Strong suspicion
The story added that “local authorities have strong suspicion of certain parties being responsible for (both) fires and that it is likely the guilty persons will be prosecuted.”
The lumber company built a yard in a new location surrounded by a steel enclosure, and the Fossbergs built a new brick building, according to Jeppesen’s presentation to the history club.
The old business buildings that now occupy both sides of Main Street were built to replace those lost in the fires, she said.
They include the now-vacant building at the southwest corner of Grant Street and Oak, which used to house the general store that Jeppesen and her husband, Jerry, owned from 1985 to 1994. She started working there in 1970 when it was Fairway Foods and general store owned by Jerry’s father, Bob.
Jeppesen said she talked to “many, many different people” during her research on the history book trying to find out who set the fires.
At least two people told her they believed the second one was deliberately set because of anger over the first one, she said.
But “there is just no word of it ever being solved,” and she wasn’t able to find the answer to the mystery herself.
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