Old Town Canoe Company fire in 1917

Benson Gray

Canoe History Enthusiast
Staff member
Dan Eaton recently noticed that there are a large number of Old Town build records in the 44,000 box that are marked burned. An example is shown below along with the article from the local newspaper which indicates that they lost about 250 canoes in a fire on July 7th, 1917. The 1912 insurance map at https://www.wcha.org/forums/index.php?attachments/13523/ shows the storage barn in the upper right corner. It was a sizable building which was probably filled floor to ceiling and wall to wall with canoes. The picture at http://www.wcha.org/forums/index.php?attachments/16704/ can give you an idea of how closely they were stacked (from when they ran out of space inside and started putting them on the roof).

It appears that B. N. Morris in Veazie was not the only builder in the area to suffer losses from a fire during that era.

Benson



44020.jpg

The Old Town Enterprise, Page4, 1917-07-07.jpg
 
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