Third Floor History
The fabulous Kelly, of Old House Dreams, sent me a bunch of old newspaper articles on the Cross House. While I had some of these, some were new!
This one seemed timely to post. It is not dated, but it would be from the early 1960s:
There is another article, undated, but which states the “Mouse Apartments”.
In 1929, Scott Mouse, Sr., converted the second floor into apartments.
In 1950, Scott Mouse, Jr., converted the house into the Palace Motel.
So, the Mouse Apartment era was the 1930s and 1940s. Is this when the fire happened?
The “sparks on the roof” however would narrow the timeline, to likely 1929 or maybe 1930. I assume this because, at the time, the house still retained its original wood shingle roof, which would have been highly prone to catching fire due to sparks.
Soon though, the original wood shingles were replaced with cementitious tiles (extant), which are wholly immune to fire.
Oh, and what caused sparks on the roof?
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November 2, 1930, is the date of the fire from the second article, since that newspaper is from Thursday, Nov. 6, 1930, The Emporia Weekly Gazette.
Thank you, Diana!
How did you find the date?
And it delights me that my timeline proved correct.
The dormitory fire was Saturday, November 11, 1961. The article is from Monday, Nov. 13, 1961, The Emporia Weekly Gazette. From newspapers.com. The person who sent you the article might have put the dates in the file names, because that’s how the clippings are saved from newspapers.com.
Another date!
Thank you, Diana!
I can look up your other clippings or a subscription is pretty cheap if you want to browse all the Emporia issues. You just type in any word or phrase and you can narrow it to Kansas or by date.
FYI, You can access historical Kansas newspapers for free on newspapers.com if you go through the KSHS website portal first.
Remarkable sleuthing Cross House enthusiastic bloggers! Astonishing and very helpful for Ross and the rest of the Cross House aficionados! Bravo to all of you “Old House Dreamers!”
Ross, when the Mouse Hotel third floor caught fire, how badly was the roof structure affected? Was structural integrity compromised at all?
See here.
Ross, our house had a fire in 1934 that was also caused by sparks falling on the roof, which presumably was wood shingles? The article detailing the fire speculated that the sparks were from the furnace, which had been kindled just prior to the fire being discovered. Evidently the grocery delivery guy is who noticed it and alerted the homeowners. In our case, the entire roof, 3rd floor, and tower were destroyed and not replaced as originally designed, resulting in an unfortunate remuddled appearance. Love newspapers.com, found out so many interesting things about the house and it’s first few owners.
Golly! What a story, lee!
Considering the fire was in early November, the boiler does seem a reasonable suspect, or perhaps one of the fireplaces.
Long Shot – could someone have been burning leaves nearby and debris got to the roof? Just letting my mind wander….. 🙂
Normally I would suggest a chimney fire as a possibility; many, many old homes burned from creosote combustion in a chimney. This would not apply to your house though, since your fireplaces burned coal. However, the house I grew up in was, until the 1990s, heated by a coal stoker furnace, and I many times watched as little glowing embers of super hot soot and ash shot out of our chimney, so that IS a possibility… Whatever the cause, we can be thankful now that the Cross House cheated death…twice!