History of Lydia- Part 2: Fire!

Downtown Lydia around 1970. Photo from the SCHS Collections.

The history of Lydia has been shaped by fire, specifically two disastrous blazes, one in 1901, and one in 1933. 

The 1901 Lydia fire has been described as “one of the most disastrous fires in the history of the county”. It occurred in the middle of the night, sometime between midnight and one, and the causes are still unknown. The blaze began at the Ludke Brothers Store, formerly owned by F. J. Vogel. 

An article published at the time described the scale of the fire: “The flames when discovered were already beyond the controllable stage, even with a well equipped apparatus. Such an apparatus is wholly lacking in Lydia and the neighbors who came to the scene had no better means of combating the fiery element then buckets and wet blankets”. It continued, “Not a thing was saved except the books, and the boys consider themselves very fortunate at being able to snatch them from the flames. The residence, which was attached to the store building, was also destroyed along with every article of furniture and clothing it contained”

Losing one of the town’s general stores would have been a challenge for the small community, but that was unfortunately not the extent of the fire. “The blacksmith shop, operated by Adolph Wandschnieder went up and the smithy building belonging to Chris Busse. Also destroyed were John Ries refreshment stand and 600 lbs of butter and 50 cases of eggs...Busse’s house caught fire, but was saved. Miller Bros’ store was also in jeopardy, as the wind bore towards it. The heat was so intense that it burst the glass in front of the store. Wet blankets saved it... Were it not for the good wells of Lydia it is hard to imagine what the damage would have been” 

Store owner Frank Ludke almost died in the blaze. He went into the store to try to save some of the records, and passed out due to smoke inhalation. Luckily firefighters were able to pull him out. Rather than rebuilding, after the fire the Ludke brothers moved to Montana where they started a hotel that catered to traveling miners. 

A second fire started in 1933. This one was equally devastating to the town, destroying   a restaurant, the barber, a garage, and Gerlich’s Harness Shop & Dance Hall. The timing, during the Great Depression, was not fortuitous. Many of the business owners did not have the cash on hand to recover. Of these businesses, only the garage was rebuilt after the blaze. 

Fighting Fires

One of the earliest volunteer fire companies, and the first fire insurance company, were both set up in the 1750s by Ben Franklin and his friend Dr. Thomas Graeme.  Fire companies served a social significance  as well as the practical significance.  You can see the social aspect of firefighting playing out in the illustration in the center of the image.  Three hoses are trained on the burning building, and you can trace those hoses to three different fire departments.  They each wear different colored capes: red, black and pale blue, to tell each other apart.  Here, the three bands are acting in cooperation, but that wasn’t always the case.

What does all this as background have to do with Scott County?  The earliest Scott County and Minnesota fire departments were just as much social organizations as their eastern predecessors, only much less violent.  Important citizens were active members of volunteer fire fighting, including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere.

What did towns do without a fire company: let a house burn or put it out yourself. Fighting fires was everybody’s business and everybody’s job.  As towns expanded and became more dense, the dangers of fire became more serious, and clamor for a fire company grew.

Fighting fires in the 19th century was tricky for several reasons: for one, building materials were easily combustible.  While 1870s Scott County was by no means a new settlement, there were enough log houses to make a general conflagration in a city a major disaster.  Second, sources of heating were dangerous: gas lights, fires, stoves, candles, all contained the possibility of getting out of control and starting a blaze.  Finally, the earliest industries that helped cities grow often contained dangerous possibilities for fires.  Lumber industry, flour milling, textiles, etc.  In fact, one of Shakopee’s flour mills burned in 1885—a very dangerous fire because of the explosive properties of wheat dust.

In 1872 Shakopee had it’s first big fire at the St. Paul and Sioux City railroad machine shop on east First Avenue.  It caused quite a bit of damage to a vital part of the city’s growth and sustenance – the railroad.  In 1879, the National Hotel burned, wiping out an entire city block that contained a grocery, several saloons, and a meat market.

Belle Plaine Fire Station

1883 is our starting date—that’s when years of agitation for a fire department finally paid off and a fire department was organized with elected members and three companies: Hook & Ladder, Engine (pumper) and Hose Companies.  Belle Plaine organzied their company in January of 1883 with great success, however the department would dwindle and disband over the next two years.  However, their early success may have inspired Shakopee to organize their company in the fall of 1883.

The Shakopee Fire Department (SFD) has all its original ledger books that record the dates of their earliest meetings, who was present, who was not present and had to pay the absentee fine, and a list of fire calls .  This ledger is of the Hook & Ladder Co.—so not the entire department—and in 1884 their budget was $31.80, a tidy sum for that day, though they received a city appropriation for $2,900 for initial equipment purchases.

The department was always a tight social organization.  But there was a lot of pomp and entertainment to their events.  They held annual Thanksgiving and Christmas balls which were the talk of the town and also helped the department raise money.  The Shakopee Argus reported on their first one in 1883: “The first annual ball of the city Fire Department was held last evening and was largely attended and thoroughly enjoyed.  The firemen were all dressed in their uniforms and presented a fine appearance in their drill…a thoroughly enjoyable time is the unanimous verdict.”

In America, we don’t talk about class very much.  But some of the earliest visitors to our nation when it was young were amazed at the spirit of community and civic duty that cut across class lines.  The son of a French nobleman, Alexis de Tocqueville, was one of the most astute observers of early American life, and remarked on how, in towns across the county, people felt the duty and desire to pitch in and steer the direction of their community and nation.  This translates down to the Shakopee fire dept., as well.  On its rolls, you see that its members were farmers, butchers, lawyers, shop owners, craftsmen and speculators; blue collar and white collar, sometimes both at once.  Most of them were immigrants.  But they were connected to the growing town and to each other, perhaps by civic duty, by self-interest, or both.

Just as the early town was dependent upon the civic engagement of all its citizens to survive, so were nearby towns dependent upon each other.  Fire calls in Shakopee history have often been assisted by companies from other towns.  Before Shakopee had its own department, St. Paul was one of the only organized fire departments in fledgling Minnesota.  They had men and equipment, like a pumper engine, though it took the department several hours to get here by rail.  Jordan and Chaska were also instrumental in fighting Shakopee’s fires, and it works vice versa.

A page from the first ledger of the department shows part of the fire record for 1884.  It indicates that barns and railroad shops were the unfortunate recipients of fire for the first half of the year.  The Omaha Railroad company shops caught fire twice, and neither fire was ruled accidental but “incendiary.”  It also lists J. B. Conter’s hotel barn as catching fire accidentally for a loss of $2.  Conter’s hotel was Shakopee’s Pelham hotel, later the Merchant Hotel.  The details of early Shakopee society that the ledgers reveal and the services rendered and records kept by the fire dept. are extraordinary.

The first decade of 1900 brought new improvements for Shakopee’s firemen.  The city installed new water mains and fire hydrants for a larger and more reliable water supply.  Hydrants provided their own pressure, so the use of heavy pumpers was reduced.

Shakopee Fire Department, 1928

In 1916, the SDF aquired its first motorized fire apparatus, a Kissel Chemical Fire Engine. That same year, fire broke out at Ries Bottling works (of which we have the letter).  The fire took off because the warehouse that caught fire stored paper, boxes and wooden cases that fed the blaze.  Apparently the Kissel did not perform well at that fire.  Another large fire took place in 1923 at the Minnesota Stove Co.

A pivotal year for the SFD was 1954/5, the year that they got their new building and moved out of the city building on 2nd and Lewis.

Fires included the McMurray building at 1st and Lewis in 1957, the Shakopee Warehouse  in 1962, and the St. Paul House in 1965 which firemen kept at for 16 hours.  Simons Lumber Yard burned in 1968, and was at 2nd and Lewis, visible at left of the picture with the fire bell.

1959 had the worst fire that Shakopee has yet seen, not so much for loss of property or extent of the blaze, but for the only loss of life to occur within the department’s history.  A fire started at Schesso’s garage, a Chevrolet dealership.  The fire was tricky because the fire fed on the gas and oil in and around the cars.  The blaze lasted 6 hours, in the course of which, Max Wermerskirchen, a 28 year old fireman, fell through the roof of the building while trying to break out a skylight to ventilate the building.  The SDF dedicated a  plaque to Max’s memory as the one firefighter to die in the line of duty in Shakopee.

We recommend Caroline Paul’s book Fighting Fire for the women’s side of the occupation.  Her book is grizzly in parts, but a very interesting read.

Original article written by Patrick Rodgers, former curator at SCHS.

Fires, Floods, Blizzards, and Crashes: Disasters in Scott County through LeRoy Lebens’ Photos

As a man who seemed to always have his camera nearby, LeRoy Lebens managed to capture a wide variety of happenings here in Shakopee and Scott County. In our inventorying of his large catalog of work here at SCHS, his pictures of disasters in the area, both man-made and natural, have caught my attention. LeRoy succeeded in being in the right place at the right time to document people’s reactions and the damage done. Two of the more notable incidents we have in our collection include the Ketterer building fire in downtown Shakopee on September 7, 1957, which took three hours and six fire departments to extinguish and the great flood of April 1965 that saw the Minnesota River crest at a record height of 721.8 feet. This flood submerged a third of Chaska and cut off access to Hwy 169 North for 15 days, requiring boats to be used to ferry people back and forth. Some of the other photos we highlight here include a train derailment off of 2nd Ave and left grain all over the street, blizzards (including LeRoy digging himself out of one), and a number of other business fires, most notably of the iconic St Paul House where LeRoy would often play swing with his trio. If you would like to learn more about these events, or to see more of the Lebens collection, come on by the Scott County Historical Society!