Fire-Arment & Co. Broom Factory-1876

WURZBACHER, ARMENT, HOVEY

Posted By: cheryl moonen (email)
Date: 9/7/2017 at 12:39:18

Thursday, February 24, 1876
Paper: Anamosa Eureka (Anamosa, Iowa)
Page: 3

Fire

This morning a little after four o’clock a fire broke out in the broom factory of Arment & Co., six doors west of the Fisher House, in a frame building owned and formerly occupied by Mr. H. Wurzbacher. It appears that Mr. Hovey had been to the shop and built a fire at four o’clock, with the intention of getting a shipment of forty-five dozen brooms in readiness for the morning train to Dubuque. After the fire in the stove was underway he went back home, remained about twenty minutes and then returned. As soon as he was in sight of the shop he discovered that it was on fire in the back part and immediately gave the alarm. In ten minutes the fire department was on the ground and throwing water: for all that was out,” as Mr. Hovey says. The machinery and fixtures in the front of the store were speedily removed, but the forty-five dozen brooms, and two dozen broom corn, a winding machine and some other stock were entirely consumed.

The wind was blowing from the south-west and in the line of the spark and flying cinders were high fences, sheds and a barn, with straw and other inflammable materials scattered about, and if the water had not been abundant and well-directed there is no doubt the result would have been much worse.

The loss was $435. Insurance on stock $300, and on fixtures $100-in the Watertown of New York, we understand, the building is not insured and is in a rather demoralized condition. Loss, about $250. The fire, it is supposed, was caused by a defective flue.