El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1917-04-25

ETWEEN IS and So automobiles,
valued at approximately $4,000.
IL were destroyed in a fire which
wrecked the Borderland garage. 5O6-
SOS North Kansas street. shortly after s
o'clock Wednesday morning. Less than
10 Of the machines were insured and
the others are practically a total loss
TO their owners.
The building. owned by Charles 3.
Stevens and Fred A Elliott, was valued
at $500, was badly damaged. There
was $500 Insurance carried on the
structure. With the exception OF the
brick walls, the building Is a total loss
Two employees Of the garage had a
narrow escape from death when the
fire broke out. and both were burned
about the face, hands and head. Hito
Hatch, one of the employees of the gar
age, was sleeping on bench when the
fire started. and he was burned about
The head and hands Tom Gilluly re-
ceived burns about the face and his
hand was badly cut in breaking the
glass window TO reach a telephone to
turn in the alarm
@GaS7 Bottle Overturns. Cause.
The fire was caused by the overturn-
1ng Of bottle Of gasoline which be-
came tgnited- Within 20 minutes after
The fire started the automobiles were =
total loss and the roof of the building
had caved in Gasoline in the garage
exploded and ignited the machines. The
gasoline in the tanks of the automo-
biles also exploded, wrapping the cars
IN a sheet OF flame.
Frank Fuentes. a Mexican employee Of
the garage, was vulcanizing q tire on
a machine and was using bottle OF
gasoline. He left the car for a few
minutes and the bottle fell from 4
bench and became ignited. When ne
returned the entire building was en-
veloped in flames
Prevent Fire Spreading.
The alarm was turned in Immediate
", but when the fire companies arrived
the building was mass of flames The
fire department did good work in pre-
venting the fire spreading to the ad-
joining houses, which were not dam
aged
The Borderland garage was operated
by J H Homan and J. T. Allison,
partners They lost all their equipment
valued at several hundred dollars
Books Burned; Loss $4,000.
Mr. HOman sta led Wednesday morn
ing that the books Of the firm were
destroyed in the fire and il was tmpos-
sible TO ascertain the number of ma
chimes in the garage. He estimates
that there were between 45 and 50 and
that the loss will reach $4,000 TO the
owners, with several Of the machines
covered by insurance
Says Only Three Saved.
I cannot either tell the exact num-
Der OF machines that were housed II
the garage or give the names of the
owners, owing to the fact that our
books were destroyed" said Mr.. Ho-
man. 4 think there must have been
between 45 and 55 cars in the garage
and OF this number only three were
saved Many of the cars were high
priced machines There were three
Simplex, two Haynes, a Locomobile,
several Chambers and Haynes cars
stored in the garage, aside from the
middle priced and cheaper cars. I be-
lieve there were three or four transient
cars in the garage There were also
several machines being repaired
Gives Partial List.
Following is a partial list OF cars
5Ir- Homan stated were housed in the
garage:
Donald GiIlies, San Toy Mining COM
par- tv-o Siv~nleV touring cars
Arthur Mcknight, Simplex touring
ear.
W. L Ball. Fiat six" roadster.
Raymond Teal Haynes touring car.
s H Thatcher, Haynes touring car.
sfr. Monahan, Locomobile touring
car.
D. Trubea. Maxwell touring car
Manuel Blanchard. Ford and Max
well touring cars.
n. Fink, Ford touring car.
A T. Thornton, KisselKar. touring.