The North Mountain Historical Society

Meeting: September 2000

September 18, 2000, "The Benton Fire of July 4, 1910" presented by George Turner

The History Buffs met at the Brass Pelican on Monday, September 18 at 8:30 A.M. with 58 people present. There were quite few people from Benton with us drawn by their interest in the topic "The Benton Fire of July 4, 1910. Rev. McDormand offered thanks and the minutes of the last meeting were read before breakfast was served.
After breakfast Jim Vance introduced Professor George Turner from the Columbia County Historical Society. Professor Turner prefaced his talk by passing around some excellent photographs of the fire, many of which he acknowledged came from Sue Shultz and Louise Lewis. Many photographs were passed around at the end of the meeting provided by Helen Fritz.
To open his talk, Professor Turner gave us a short history of the town and a picture of life as it was in Benton in 1910. In 1852 the Benton Post Office was opened with Daniel Hartman as the first Postmaster. In 1862 there were 60 dwellings in the town. In 1889 William Smith started publishing the Benton Argus, the weekly newspaper later taken over by the Brewington family. John McHenry from Benton was elected to Congress, an honor for such a small town in a rural area.
The Benton Fire started near the blacksmith shop of Clyde Hirleman at 3:20 P.M. Apparently some children were playing with fireworks near the Hirleman's barn and straw ignited and caught the barn on fire. The fire spread rapidly due to a brisk wind and the dry condition of the wood shingles on most buildings.
The fire fighting efforts were hindered by lack of manpower. It being July 4th, there was a baseball game between Benton and Bloomsburg being played that afternoon in Bloomsburg. All of Benton's players and many fans had gone to Bloomsburg on the B& S railroad. The regular run did not return until 7:00 P.M. A call went out to Jamison city for help but there was a heavily loaded log train making slow progress down from there so that slowed their response.
But the main cause of the disastrous spread of the fire was lack of water. There was no water system in the town and no fire company. Due to legal maneuvering by a few people the waterworks, approved in 1904, never materialized. The main fire defense in 1910 was bucket brigades and on July 4th that was not enough. 200 people were left homeless and 50% of the business district was gone. The loss in today's dollars was 5.2 million dollars.
Benton struggled to cope with the disaster. One bright spot was that there were no deaths in the disaster and only 2 people suffered serious injuries. A Relief Committee was formed and shelter and food for those who had lost their homes was found immediately.
An ordinance was passed mandating that all roofs must be made of fireproof material and in 1914 a water works for Benton was opened. Benton was making sure a 1910 fire would not happen again.
Our thanks to Professor Turner for a most interesting presentation. The next meeting will be Monday, October 16. Gerald Zeveney will speak on the history of telephone service in northern Columbia County.