The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1915-04-10
Stores Were Filled With Heavy
Expensive Materials.
Several Hours of Constant
Fighting With Is Hose Lines.
EARLY MORNING FIRE LOSSES.

Fire at $40 this morning gutted the
Palace Clothing company building at
7O9-13 Kansas avenue for a loss to the
Auerbac ch -Cuettel interests of $3.50, 900,
while fire. water and smoke damaged
adjoining properties to the amount of
about $4,000. Probably so per cent
of the aggregate loss is covered by in
surance.
Origin of the fire is unknown. The
blaze started in the waste room in the
basement of the Palace company
building So rapidly did the fire
spread that when engines arrived from
central station, little more than a
block away, flames were shooting
through the roof and the building was
doomed All of the citys fire fight
ing equipment was called into service
and every line of available hose was
used to furnish the twelve streams
that finally checked the blaze and
prevented its spread to the Crosby
Brothers store and other buildings.
Auerbach in Excelsior Springs.
Henry Auerbach, resident manager
and senior member of the firm of
Auerbach & Guettel, was in Excelsior
Springs, Mo-, when the fire started.
When he arrived in Topeka at 9:35
this morning, his company's building
and stock of gents furnishings was a
complete loss, while the building was
wrecked. This is the third serious fire
at this number, the Palace firm haV-
ing suffered a complete loss 1S years
ago, and a fire 20 years ago gutted the
building.
Locked in the building when the fire
started this morning was J. G. Loper,
711 Swiss avenue, night watchnian for
the Palace company. Loper's call from
the box in the building was registered
at 3:11, a minute after call had
come from the National hotel.
Watchman Discovered 1t.
Loper declared today that he had
visited the basement Is minutes be-
fore turning in the alarm and that he
found no evidence of fire. He was re-
turning from a visit to the upper
floors when he discovered smoke and
saw flames tapping their way up the
elevator shaft that acted as a flue and
carried the fire to the roof and all of
the four floors of the building. 1t
was impossible, Loper said. to enter
the basement. After turning in an
alarm, the watchman stood at the
Kansas avenue entrance of the store
until Patrolmen WonderIy and Fergu-
son told him to break the door and
leave the building.
For more than an hour after the
first alarm came. the Berkson and
GerStley stores and Security hall con-
tanning the Walk-Over shoe store and
the Voiland store the north, were
threatened. But the fight was not
alone to protect the north buildings
The Payne shoe store and the big
Crosby Brothers on the south were
for two hours in constant danger
Fire Wall Saved Crosby.
A fire wall. separating a reserve
stock of the Palace company and the
Payne shoe store, held. This saved
the big Crosby store, which for time
threatened to add several hundred
thousand dollars to the aggregate loss.
An hour after the fire was discov-
cred, the third floor of the Palace
building fell. Thirty minutes later a
section of the roof went. The roof and
third floor carried u section of the
lower floors to the flooded basement
and dumped the company's $4,000
lConI1nI.En . 80 No