Tingley Centennial: 1883 ~1983
Ringgold Record Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa December 6, 1894
Destroyed by Fire The Entire North Side of of the Business Portion of Tingley in Ashes -
Opera House Saved. In All About $60,000 Dollars Worth of Property Is Destroyed -
The Stocks Mostly Saved - The Origin A Terrible Calamity
Early Tuesday morning news of a serious fire at Tingley reached this city and the Record at once hurried a
special representative to the scene of devastation, little dreaming that the dreaded Fire King had wrought such
desolation to our fair sister city as met his gaze upon arriving into town. Goods of all sorts and descriptions were piled
promiscuously along Main Street and streets leading therfrom, while the smoldering ashes and blackened debis told - alas,
too well - the horrible truth. the people of the afflicted city were busy in housing the goods which were left
shelterless by the terrible element, but not too busy to speak in glowing terms of the manly part played by all the
citizens of tingley in Monday night's awful drama. At about 10:30 p.m. as Mr. J. H. NELSON, who was with R. J. WILSON
in NELSON'S hardware store, looked in the direction of HANCOCK &LEE'S general store, he saw smoke issuing from the
rear end of same and at once gave the alarm and was joined by J. W. ASBURY and others who had been chatting in ASBURY'S
drug store. The hook and ladder truck was procurred and the entire city alarmed and everyone set to work with a will.
The flames ran westward from the place of origin to John HAVER'S general store and from there to the clothing store of
C. E. HAMMANS where, it was hoped by the citizens, it could be checked, as the next building was the Tingley bank which
was constructed of brick, but alas for the hopes of the gallant workers, the rear end of ASBURY'S drug store, which
projected further to the north than the bank building, was soon in flames, thereby conveying the fire to the building
owned by Dr. ASBURY and occupied by Mr. MARTIN as a jewelry store, and from there to ASBURY'S residence, thence to D. D.
KILLINGSWORTH and the government post office. This brought the flames to the furniture store of W. M. BARKHUFF, which
was also consumed, but by dint of hard work, the ravages of the fire in this direction was checked and Tingley's pride,
the new opera house was saved. While the attention of the majority of the workers was given to the above mentioned points of the
conflagration, the flames had leaped across the street east to a frame building owned by C. H. JONES and which stood
patially in the street. From there they swept everything before them, including the new two-story brick owned by
Mr. JONES, a vacant building belonging to the Misses SCHNEIDER, ELDER Bros.' drug store, which was also the office of
Dr. HANNELY, MaHAFFEY'S harness shop, the second floor of which was occupied by Mrs. EDGINGTON as a dressmaking
establishment, BENNETT'S barber shop, and RICHARD'S restaurant, until it reached the dwelling house of Mrs. W. R.
PECKHAM, where by the use of dampened carpets torn from the floors the destroyer was conquered, thus saving the City
Hotel. Dr. KILLINGSWORTH'S dwelling, directly north of Mrs. PECKHAM'S was saved in the same manner. Long before
the fire had reached its grandest height, the citizens concluded that, with their limited facilities for fire
fighting, it would be useless to undertake to get it under complete control and turned their attention to the
saving of the numerous stocks of goods, which they did with a fair measure of success, with the possibility exception
of the stock of HANCOCK &LEE which was completely lost. To the fair daughters of Tingley, too much praise cannot
be given for their noble efforts towards the saving of property; they working side and side to the
sturdy brothers for the salvation of their beautiful city. In all, twenty buildings were consumed including
eighteen business buildings, McNEIL'S livery stable and Dr. ASBURY'S residence, besides four smaller barns and
numerous outbuildings. The utter hopelessness of fighting fire without an adequate water supply will be impressed
on the minds of the business men not only of Tingley, bu ther neighboring cities as well; and when the fact becomes
known to the citizens of Mt. Ayr that the Missouri combine insurance has made a very material increase in the rates
at Grant City, owing to her limited water supply, active steps will no doubt be taken looking toward the construction
of a complete system of water works at this place.
The Origin of the Fire
Little or nothing is known of the origin of the fire, although several advanced the idea to the Record reporter
that it was the work of miscreants. This view was strengthened by the fact of the fire at Knowlton having occurred about
four hours later. The fact that considerable thieving was indulted induring the continuance of the conflagration also adds weight
to the theory, as does also the numerous burglaries which have been occuring in this and adjoining counties within the past few weeks.
Losses
Below will be found a synopsis of the property values and amount of insurance carried by the Tingley sufferers as given by
various loses to the Record representative:
W. M. BARKHUFF, funiture; value stock $800; value building $800; insurance on stock, $800.
D. L. BOSWROTH, landlord; building occupied by post office and Dr. KILLINGSWORTH, valued at $800; insured for $500.
Dr. KILLINGSWORTH, loss at office and house about $150; no insurance.
Miss POLLOCK, Post Mistress; loss light.
T. P. ASBURY values residence, store building and stock at $3500; insured for $1800.
Tingley Bank, loss on building $2700; insured for $1500. The safe was found to be safe and the vault was
found to be uninjured.
C. E. HAMMANS, clothing stock vauled at $5000; insured for $3000.
Building occupied by HAMMANS was owned by Josiah LORIMOR of Lorimor and M. W. VANCE of Afton, was valued at $800;
amount of insurance could not be ascertained.
John HAVER values stock at $9000, building at $1800; insurance $3000.
HANCOCK &LEE lose $4000; insured for $2500.
J. V. McNIEL, values barn at $1000 and was insured for $300. He also lost sleighs, robes and feed to the amount of
$200, which was not insured.
C. H. JONES, values frame building at $1000, brick at $5000 and stock at $7000, about one-third of the latter was
saved. Mr. JONES will probably feel the loss more severely than the others, as he carried no insurance whatever.
ELDER Bros.' stock ws valued at $80 and building at $1000; insurance on both, $1900.
J. C. MaHAFFEY lost on stock about $200. Then entire stock being insurance for $00.
Mrs. EDGINGTON loses aboaut $100 on household goods.
E. M. BENNETT, loss on building $700; insurance $400. Household goods and stock were saved.
Mr. MARTIN'S loss on jewelry was covered by insurance.
The above does not give an estimate of the losses on all the stock, for the reason that at the early hour of which
the Record man visited Tingley a comprehensive idea of the amount of damage in that direction could not be gained.
Stray Sparks
Mrs. PECKHAM, an old lady of sixty-five years, received considerable praise for the incessant manner in which she labored
carrying water and other articles until the fire was in subjgation. The fire had spent its force by 2 a.m. and guards were
put out to watch the sparks and look after the goods. T. P. ASBURY and ELDER Bros. talk of rebuilding at once.
Hon. C. C. BOSWORTH was busy as a bee Tuesday figuring out how much the companies represented by him would have to "dough
up." N. A. PARKER, Mt. Ayr's hustling insurance man, was looking at the ruins Tuesday. MAXWELL, the photographer, was
gazing at the debris through his camera bright and early Tuesday. John HAVER was just as jolly with the reporter as if
he had never seen a fire. The clothing stock of C. E. HAMMANS and the furniture of W. M. BARKHUFF is stored in the east
room under the opera house. John HAVER moved his goods to the GALLOWAY building across the street, while the post office
has preempted part of the Vindicator sanctum.
SOURCE: Tingley, Iowa Centennial: 1883 - 1983. Pp. 12-13. PSI, Inc. Belmond IA. 1983.
Courtesy of Mount Ayr Public Library, September of 2011
Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, September of 2011
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