Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-08-01

along the Northern Pacific railway
: IN 1881 TO 1883. no attention was paid
10 nre hazards, sanitation or water
supply and these important needs OF
urban life were later attended to In
q haphazard way as the demand arose.
Some OF the townsite promoters paid
some attention to city planning in
making their plots but these were
mainly paper provisions that were not
carried out until years later.
The failure to provide protection
against fires was especially manifest
in early Montana days and nearly
every town had more than one disas-
trous contlagration before experience
and high insurance rates brought these
matters forcibly before the townspeo-
pie. Looking over items from the ter
ritorial press of those days, mention
of the wiping out of entire blocks by
flames was a common occurrence.
The history Of early fires in Billings
is typical of the experience of other
towns along the Northern Pacific and
in other sections of the state. In the
rush to get in on the ground floor with
the advent of the railroad, one story
frame buildings were hastily con-
structed along the main streets of that
time. Many of these places were nc
better than Shacks with taxpayer or
timed roofs and tent stores were sand
wiched in between these flimsily con-
structed frame buildings.
To make matters worse. there was
no water in the town of Billings, ex-
cept as it was hauled in barrels from
the Yellowstone river and retailcd about
town at 25 cents a barrel. The early
Billings papers took up from the begin
ming a crusade for obtaining water,
emphasizing particularly the fire dan
ger. They succeeded in getting most
OF the merchants to adopt the precau-
ton Of keeping a few barrels of water
handy where a bucket or two doused
on an incipient blaze might stop a con-
migration. With editorial encourage
ment, a local company was formed to
bore an arteSian well but although il
was drilled around a thousand feet, no
water IA struck.
The completion of the irrigation
canal known as the Big Ditch bv The
toWnslte company in the summer of
1883, with its extension to the city The
following year, brought water for irri-
eating trees and gardens to the north
part of town and laterals we're dug 1T
the sides Of some of the main streets,
This brought a measure Of fire pro-
lection OF which use was made at the
towns first disastrous fire on July Is
1884. Fortunately the few blazes be-
fore that time were in buildings iso-
lated from the main business blocks
Of town.
One of the first of such blazes de-
stroyed the blacksmith shop of w. A.
Allen, who later became Billings first
resident dentist. A boarding house was
destroyed in a later blaze. The towns
people took up a subscription SO that
the landlady and her daughter. bereft
OF all their property, could return to
their relatives in the east. Once in
the summer of 1883, a prairie fire ragged
west OF town n destroyed q number
OF haystacks and burned some crops
Citizens from towns hurried out to
fight the fire and prevent its spreading
toward the city.
The first big fire started about mid
night in the middle of a row Of frame
buildings, more than half Of which were
saloons, facing Montana avenue be-
tween Twenty-sixth and Twenty
seventh street. Some workmen the
day before had been putting a tin root
on the frame saloon building belonging
to Mckee bIothers and it was believed
that hot solder, which had fallen, an
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had started the flames.
AS the alarm was given people soon
rushed from all parts of the town to
the scene Of the fire which was al
ready beginning to spread to other
buildings in the row. A bucket brigade
was formed passing along water dipped
up from the small irrigation ditch
along the street. So little progress was
made in combating the flames, how
ever, that the volunteers soo quit and
began carrying out the stocks of goods
from the different stores in the path OF
the fire. The goods were piled out in
haphaZard fashion and some of them
were left SO close that they afterwards
caught fire and burned. Hooks and
ropes were obtained and efforts were
made to tear down some of the frame
walls on either side of the blaze but
the approaching flames soon drove the
workers away without any material
check having been given the conflagra-
ton.
In order to prevent the fire spreading
to the north part of the block, it was
decided to blow up the Hefferlin build
ing with three kegs Of powder which
the time only added fury to the flames
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west from the original blaze, but it
did serve to clear the path and protect
the Windsor hotel. Wheatley's livery
barns and the log courthouse and other
buildings on the block which did not
face on Montana avenue. The fire
after ravaging the front Of the block
quickly burned itself out, a fortunate
circumstance, for an hour or SO later
a hard wind sprung up, blowing embers
which had to be constantly watched
to prevent them catching fire to adjoin-
ing blocks. Someone conceived the idea
OF diverting the water from the irri-
cation ditch on the ruins and the citi-
zens fell to with a will to carry out
this novel plan Of quenching a fire.
The fire loss was estimated at $45. 900
of which about half consisted of stocks
of goods. About $4,000 in insurance
was carried and the town for the next
week or two was full Of insurance adj
justers. There were II buildings de-
stroyed of which eight housed saloons
wholesale liquor houses.
There was an abundance of excite
ment during the fire. Some dynamite
was stored in a flreprOOf building at
the rear Of Babcock and Miles hard
ware store and there was constant fear
that the intense heat from debris burn
ing about the building would cause an
H.