River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-03-09


Goods company, given valuation es-
timated in the neighborhood of $1,000
900 are either ashes or water drenched
and smoke affected.
Origin Not Placed.
Fire, probably originating, It is
rumored, from spontaneous combustion
in the Photographic studios of S. P.
Eggan on the top floor near the Sixth
street corner of the building or from
an overheated range in the Arion lunch
rooms, resulted in the telephoning of
a still alarm into fire headquarters by
Douglas Bedding, head night man in
the Elgin Lunch restaurant across the
street, and a general alarm soon af-
terward brought every fire COM
pany in the city to the scene. Later
the st. Paul department sent over
apparatus, and police from every pre-
cinct in Minneapolis were called.
Fifty men, women and childre |,
sleeping in the upper floors of the
building, were awakened by dense
clouds of smoke and the cracking of
flames that rushed upward borne by
currents of air in the elevator shaft
and light we'll in the Arcade. Battling
for their lives in the narrow dark pas
sageWay, whole families strOve to
make an exit from the front of the
building, but were beaten back by the
hot blasts to the windows overlooking
the alley at the rear of the building
directly opposit the rear walls of the
New England Furniture and Carpet
company's establishment.
Twenty-Five of the refugees were
taken out by firemen who swarmed
over the rear of the buildings and
forming living chains handed the wo-
men and children down to the lower
levels.
DR.. Otto Gunvalson and his wife
were awakened in their apartments on
the third floor by flames breaking
through the transom of their bed room.
In their night robes they rushed
through the flaming vortex in the hall
and gained a rear window. AS soon
as the window was opened, the draught
created sent the flames from the burn
ing walls through the opening. DR..
Gunvalson dragged his wife to ledge,
leaped to a smoking beam that had
been dislodged from floor above and
swung, tightly clutching his terrified
wife, to the roof of the New England
building.
Terror reigned in the Arcade. Elmer
Franson, 10 years old, reports that
after saving his mother he saw two
women throw up their hands and fall
back into the blaze. So sudden was
the onslaught of the flames that the
edly in the rescue work.
Extending around through the front
of the building toward Fifth street,
the fire ate swiftly into the exterior
of the structure where it was tenn
porarily stopped by the fire wall be-
tween the Minneapolis Dry Goods COM
panys store. Later the flaming
brands set fire to the roof of this
part of the building and flames were
carried by downward draught to the
lower floors.
The Syndicate building is made up
of several units. The Model Cloth
ing houses quarters and the Minnea-
polls Dry Goods company were con-
structed as end compliments. The
Arcade, building on the old Office style
plan, was honeycombed with rooms,
studios and offices from the second
to the fifth floors and formed ready
food for the flames. The building ex-
tends for one block along Nicollet ave-
nue. and has a depth of one-half block
to the alley that separates the struc-
ture from the New England building.