Ringgold Record
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
December 6, 1894

  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.

  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.

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.

  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