The Oskaloosa herald., 1900-09-27
INCENDIARY FIRE.
The Ed Nugent Building on West
High Avenue has a Close Call.

n hI6 dihTn Was SOuuu6u dUOub
one O'Clock Sunday morning for the
Ed Nugent building at the corner of
High avenue and d street. The
building was occupied by Jasper O.
Farr as a grocery. The location is a
good one and the place was doing a
nice little business. In the second
story of the building were living
rooms. Mr.. Nugent had q suite of
rooms at the front or south end of
the building and @. Bargdell and
wife occupied the rear of the second
floor.
Flam es were seen in the rear of the
place by a passer by and the alarm
vas turned in from the Mike Fehd
market. Hoseman Jones made a re-
markably quick trip down the avenue
and was soon after the flames. The
fire had a good start but Mr.. Jones
went into the place with his chemical
tanks and by the use of both of them
put the fire out and there was COM
paratively little damage done.
Mr.. Jones found a strange state of
affairs when he went into the burn
ing room. The condition of things
seer by Mr.. Jones would clearly in
dictate that the fire was of incendiary
origin. A box of kindling stuffs had
been placed between a couple of bar
rels and next to a wooden partition.
The box of kindling material had
been so thoroughly saturated with
coal oil that the smoke from the
building smelled as if it came from a
coal oil fire. The flames had been
communicated to the wood partition
and to the window sill at the east
end of the room. The chemical tank
soon had the fire under control and
Hoseman Jones took the kindling
box outside of the buildingland it
continued to burn for some time.
At the rear of the building there
are indications that some party or
parties had been about the place for
some time evidently working for a
chance to get into the building.
The fire wagon had started back
and had gone some distance when it
vas called back by the cry that there
was lore fire, and it returned to find
that there had been fire started in a
second place in the big roll of paper
under a lot of shelving in the north
west orner of the store room proper.
The paper was pulled from the corner
and this second fire was put out. The
north room proper where the first
fire originated was occupied as a liv-
ing room by Mr.. and Mrs. Jasper @.
Farr proprietors of the store. Mrs.
Farr is away from home visiting
friends and relatives in Ohio, and at
the time of the fire Mr.. Farr was at
the home of his father west of New
Sharon for an over Sunday visit. He
closed the store and departed for the
country at about 10 O'Clock Saturday
evening and knew nothing OF the fire
until Sunday evening when he e
turned to the city.
When Mr.. Farr went into the store
he went to his money drawer which
he found partly opened and saw that
the money that had been left in the
drawer was gone. He thought that
perhaps the police had taken it for
safe keeping since the store was left
exposed by the breaking of windows.
But the police knew nothing of the
money, and it now develops that Mr..
Farr's money till was robbed of S26
which amount he left in the draw
er when he left the store Saturday
evening.
The proprietor has 10 doubt but
that the fire was OF incendiary origin
but he is at a loss to understand who
could have done the work. He has
no enemies that he knows of, no one
who has a knowledge of thu store
that would permit them to gain en-
trance to the store and the money
drawer. The case is a strange one
and will be thoroughly Investigated
by the police,