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Community Corner

Life in Montgomery Before the Firefighters

Pat Torrance takes us back to the dark times before Montgomery had its own fire department.

In the early days, fire was an essential part of life. The story of Jim Yard, as a young boy, running three miles to borrow some live coals, and carrying them in an iron kettle back home sounds far fetched (no pun intended); but it was probably commonplace in the days before matches were invented. 

But fire also had the ability to alter or destroy life. People lived with so many hazards, that house fires must have seemed inevitable to them. They really had no alternative.

Given the reality of open flames used for cooking, candles, reading lamps and heating stoves as well as a limited water supply, it is no wonder people lived in fear.

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When most people lived in small, one-story homes, they might be able to discover and control a small fire, or even escape a larger one. But unfortunately, many fires were caused by something they could not control, like a lightning strike, sparks from a passing train, or even spontaneous combustion. One of the earliest fires reported in our village was started in a stovepipe, and according to the 1848 Aurora Beacon-News article, it “destroyed Daniel Gray and Sons Store and Post Office one and a half miles below the city of Aurora.”

About 80 years later, the Rufas Gray homestead was burned. But this mysterious fire was of more sinister origin, and the place no longer belonged to the Gray family. In this case, the original home was used as a roadhouse and had just been remodeled and redecorated for a gala opening. This building, with its new addition, was on Route 31, in the Kendall County portion of Montgomery, north of the railroad overpass. Clearly it was arson, and just one of several rowdy prohibition-era events that will be the topic of a future story.  

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In 1884, John Lilly built a large new dwelling on the east side of the river. Two stoves were left burning overnight in the building to dry the plaster. Since the fire caught at a bay window, some distance from the stoves, it was unclear how it started. There was no one in the building and nothing to extinguish the fire. It lit up the sky for two hours before the building burned to the ground.

In 1893, a grass fire—no doubt ignited by sparks from a passing train—burned the area south of the depot, on the west side of Railroad Street. It spread to a stack of straw belonging to Mr. Atwood. It nearly reached the house of Frank Phillips, but was held at bay by the hard work of the community. About a thousand cedar ties stored by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad southwest of the station fed the fire.

For a time there was fear that the wind might shift and push the intensely hot flames eastward into the village with disastrous results. With no fire department in the village, the fire chief from Aurora was summoned, and he came with an assistant to Montgomery on a switch engine. They found that it would take 1,700 feet of hose to reach the river.

With a peat fire burning in Aurora, they could not spare the extra hose, so they returned home. The fire smoldered, consuming everything in its path until it could be put out. The need for a volunteer fire department was clear.

In 1899, two more buildings were destroyed in Montgomery. One was the cheese factory that occupied a building where the current Mill Tavern is located. The empty building was owned by the Lilly estate. It was believed that it was a case of arson that spread to a house next door. The house was owned by John Golden and occupied by Peter Young. The house, along with the furniture and personal belongings of Mr. Young, was destroyed. Again, a message was sent to Aurora but they could not spare any equipment and the fire burned itself out.

Another case of suspected arson destroyed a new fertilizer factory at the sheep yards. The loss was estimated at $3,000 with one third of it covered by insurance. Mr. Staudt, Mr. VanRuynbeke and Mr. Wood owned the works. It was speculated that someone who objected to the offensive odor set the fire.

Mr. Adams owned and occupied a house in Montgomery that was totally destroyed by fire in 1901. They never knew how the fire started. His loss was compounded when his life savings of $100 in cash also went up in smoke. While this might seem like a meager amount, in buying power it is equal to $2,271 today.

Finally in 1912 an ordinance was passed to form a fire department in the village.

The Sheep Yards had several fires over the years, in spite of the water towers they built. But, by the time they caught fire again in 1933, they had help from the 20-year-old Montgomery Volunteer Fire Department. Richard Mosley was the night watchman who discovered the fire and turned in the alarm. The north side of the building was ablaze when Mosley opened the gates to the south entrance and started driving the cattle to safety. 

When Chief Ed Rector and his ten volunteers showed up, followed by companies three and six from Aurora, the whole building was burning at once. They never had a chance to save it. In spite of all the manpower, 491 heifers and steers suffocated and burned. The total loss was $30,000 ($519,000 in today’s dollars), covered by insurance. 

Other fires continued to plague the town, but with today’s modern alarm systems, fire extinguishers, well-trained and equipped firefighters nearby, people no longer live in fear of seeing their homes and their very lives destroyed. We sometimes yearn for the “good old days,” often forgetting that everything about those days wasn’t so good!

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