The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-05-09
lFrom Onr special Reporter)

(FFOm Our SpeelaA ESePOtteFp !.
 Naugatuck, May Sire which started in the elevator shaft of the furniture store on Church street for merly conducted by the late Walter q. Gilnack swept through the en- tire three story brick structure last night completely gutted the buiiu- ing and contents entailing loss that was estimated at $100,O0O.
 The building is the property of F. w. Tolles and 1t was estimated that the damage done would reach $50,- 900. The furniture stock was the property of the Carlson Furniture company. The Carlson company pur' chased the stock from the Gilnack estate several weeks ago. Joseph Carlson was unable to give an ac. curate estimate of his loss until checkup had been made but nt thought it would run between x4e,' 900 and $5O,000. The Carlson com pany. has been disposing of the Gii. mack stock for the past severa weeks at a sale. .,
 A general alarm was sounded fol the fire from box 21 located across from the building. Many people were
  at 9:3O o'clock and clerks who hao customers on the second and third floors of the building barely had time to get out of the building be- for it was a mass of flames, exit by way of the elevator being cut off, Il was necessary for them to make their hurried exit by the stairs.
 The customers on the third floor of the building were being waited on by Arthur Almquist when he saw a gust of smoke shoot up the eleva- tor shaft. He shouted a warming of ire and hustled the two women he was waiting on down the stairs. Mil ton Shea, another clerk was on the second floor of the building waiting on customers when he heard the alarm shouted and detected the ire he also hurried his customers down the stairs to the first floor exits. The fire had also been discovered on the first floor of the building by MT Hirsch and Fridolph Carlson, em- ployes of the store who with James Lawley, another empioye, made gallant fight to subdue the blaze without avail. MT Almquist and Shea hurried to the alarm box directly across the street and runS in an AldTIn UOA <4s WILL thS uAAAvN~i of the first pieces of apparatus 1t was seen that the fire had gained great headway and a general alarm was sounded calling all apparatus and firemen to the scene as well as every member of the police depart ment. The fire shot up ths elevator shaft like a skyrocket and spread to the second and third floors of the building and soon shot through the roof. Store employees in the mean time had hurried all through the large store to make sure that every. one was out. When the fire was frs, discovered 1t was said to have been in the bottom of the elevator shaf' and the belief was expressed that the electric cable of the elevator had broken and set fire to the waste and oil in the pit of the shaft. The elevator was not in use at the time and was stopped on the second. floor of the building. The firemen soon had several lines of hose playing on the building and directed chemicals on other buildings close by that. it was feared might take fire from the intense heat of the blaze. Forum ately there was very little wind blowing and roofs of buildings in the neighborhood had been pretty we'll water soaked from the heavy rain of the day. Fear was expressed for the Masonic temple adjoining the Tolles building but brick wall stopped the fire and very little dam- age was done in the Masonic tenn pie. outside of smoke damage.
 Water pressure was at first rather low but the bumpers were started and powerful streams of water poured into the structure for about two hours before the blaze was con- quered. Lines of hose were played on the blaze from all sides and from the roof of the Masonic building and the Matson Building across Park place. Thousands of residents were attracted to the scene of the l fire by the general alarm and every available policeman was pressed into service to assist in handling the crowd and keep them back of the l fire lines Fear that the walls of the building might cave in as they had been warped by the fire caused Chiei John Adamson of the police depart ment to cut of all trafiic through
 Park place. The wall on this side of the building was considerably out
 of plumb. The nature of the mer.
 chandise in the building, much oi
 which was highly infiammable in.
 cluding mattresses and stuffed pieces
 made very hot fire and one that
 was difficult to fight as the extreme
 heat kept the fire fighters back from
 the structure. The fire last night wa,
 the first big conflagration that the
 borough has had since January
 1928, when the entire block ir Union City Suuare known as th.
 Linskey property was wiped out.