By Ronald Ahrens
You could buy a penny box of matches in those days and get a lot for your money.
Take this case from Newell, Iowa, for instance. Three boys–two aged nine and one aged 12–spent two cents on the afternoon of September 3, 1953. With a good supply of matches, they went to Fullerton Lumber Co. to experiment. Dipping a stick into flammable liquid, they lit it. When the stick flamed up and became a torch, the boy holding it suffered a burned finger and flung it away.
The lads were spared additional injuries, but the inferno they started around 5.15 p.m. burned for six hours. The lumber yard was consumed, and with a stiff south breeze and dry conditions, flames jumped to the Farmers Co-op elevator. By 6.45 p.m., this wood elevator was declared a total loss.
Besides the force commanded by Newell fire chief Paul Wilfong, crews arrived from Fonda, Sac City, Early, Storm Lake, and Nemaha.
The fire spread to three refrigerated freight cars in a string of fifteen cars on a nearby railroad siding. The three reefers were left to burn after the rest of the string was detached and moved along the track.
Firemen succeeded in preserving the Galbraith Elevator next door and oil tanks fifty yards off.
Franklin Willadsen, manager of the Galbraith Elevator, said the flames were controlled by 11.30 p.m., although the grain smoldered overnight.
The Illinois Central estimated all damages at $500,000. A subsequent report put the losses in the range of $275,000 to $500,000.
Newell Construction Co. built the Farmers’ elevator in 1915–the same year the Iowa Cooperative Law (Iowa Code Chapter 497) was passed.
“It will handle all kinds of grain,” a news report said. “A feed house is also being built and will be complete in a few days, and feed and coal will be handled here. The elevator is just north of the Milwaukee coal chute and J.R. Timms, who has been assistant of the Farmers’ company at Alburnett, has been engaged for a year, and assumed charge Monday.”
The Newell Farmers Co-op decided on a reinforced-concrete elevator as a replacement and arranged with Tillotson Construction Co. to build it. The new 150,000-bushel single-leg concrete elevator was completed in 1954.