The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1908-12-31
A GARDEN GROVE FIRE
The Opera House was Totally De-
stroyed by Fire Sunday Morn
ing about 3 O'clock.

Garden Grove was visited by another
costly fire little before three o'clock
Sunday morning when the opera house
block in that town was totally destroyed
by fire. The opera house was big two
story brick block, located at the west
end of the business houses on the north
side Of Main street. The first floor was
divided into two store rooms, the west
room being owned by T.. j. Shelter, the
furniture dealer, and contained over
one hundred burial caskets and other
undertaking goods, furniture, mat
tresses, ETC., while the front Of the room
was used by DIR. w. G. Ward as dental
Office. The east room was owned by
out Of town parties, whose names could
not be learned, as the property has
been in litigation for some time, and at
THE last term of court in Leon fore
0closure proceedings was started on a
mortgage held by Mrs. Annie Mallette,
and it is said that this fact invalidates
the Insurance on the room.
The opera house was a very credit
able building for a town the size of
Garden Grove, having been built in
1870 by Hiram Hines and G. G. Dilsaver,
at cost Of about $4,000. The second
story was owned by Kansas City real
estate dealer, and was insured for
1000. The west store room owned by
T. ]. Shelter, was insured for $500 and
he also carried $1,000 insurance on his
stock of goods, but this will not near
cover his loss which he estimates at
$1,000 above the insurance.
DIR. Ward lost all of his dental tools
and Office furniture, valued at 5000, and
ne had but $3.50 insurance. Thomas
Mccullough and family were temper
arily occupying the east room as living
apartments and lost nearly all of their
household goods, and the family barely
escaped with their lives, making their
escape through dense smoke. the fire
having made great headway before
being discovered.
So great was the heat from the burn
ing building that all of the plate glass
in the buildings on the east side of the
street as far east as the old Farmers
Bank building was broken, I, J. SSi,rncr.
enc Of the heavy losers in the building
also suffered considerable loss on his
furniture stock on the south side, in
addition to loss of over 5000 on his
glass fronts across the street. The
town hall which is located directly
opposite the opera house was on fire
several times and was only saved by
most strenuous efforts, and it took hard
work to keep the entire south side of
the street from burning.
The origin of the FIRE is unknown, but
it is thought it started from cigar or
cigarette stub carelessly thrown in
some sa wdust on the floor of the opera
house. Saturday night there was a
game of basket ball in the opera house,
and on previous occasion the floor had
been covered with sawdust, but it
proved too dusty and was swept up on
one side OF the room, and it is thought
{ that some one in the audience care
lsssly threw cigar or cigarette stub
into pile of the sawdust. When the
! Ere was first discovered it was located
in the center of the building, and had it
been possible to secure sufficient water
the building might have been saved, but
tho entire building was so full of smoke
that no one could enter, and with prac
tieally no water supply the flames soor
spread and in shert time the entire
building was mass of roaring flames.
Garden Greve has been singularly un
fortunate in sustaining heavy losse
from Are in the past few years.