The history of fires and the fire departments in the twin villages continues:

When the California, Union, Colony and Cook blocks burned to the ground 105 years ago on January 9, 1912, the Sandy Creek Fire Company with other willing helpers went through the hardest fight in the history the town or village, either before or since, working like demons and looking like moving ice or snowmen, from about noon all through the terrible night. Some had to abandon the struggle through sheer exhaustion, while others took their places.

Sandy Creek News: “William C. Bennie, then superintendent of the gas company and not a fireman, nearly gave his life to the cause having worked all day and night helping to save goods from some of the stores, finally starting home with gas still burning and roaring out of one-inch pipe from every store from the corner of Railroad Street to the Colony Block. He left the scribe of this with Bert Crandall to dig down four to six feet through snow and frozen ground to the curb boxes in order to shut off the gas, which we did before daylight, leaving only the C. W. Colony jet still roaring as the curb stop was broken and took all next day before it could be stopped.”

“Up to the time of this tragic, in the history of all the many fires of both Sandy Creek and Lacona, only two deaths were ever known as recorded as result of gas explosion, that of Mrs. Hadley and Carrie Corse Salisbury, when the home of the late Degrasse Salisbury on East First Street was blown apart by an explosion of the natural gas, due to Mother Hadley’s excitement in entertaining the gas filled room with a lighted lamp. However, many were the miraculous escapes from instant death. C. E. Thomas slid from the roof of his brother-in-law’s house, L. F. Tifft in Lacona while trying to wet the roof during the Nate Davis fire across the street. He fell into the raceway of the Harding Mill some 40 feet or more with only a slightly lame back as a result. During the Bulkley Opera House fire and burning of the Cook and Herriman block this scribe escaped instant death by four inches. He had 75 pounds of lead paint in each hand and was going out the back door when the entire iron cornice fell, brushing his hat rim. Two inches farther back and this article would never have been written. Charles Cronk jumped or fell from a roof at the same fire with only a broken leg. (Another source says this: “When the Bulkley Opera House burned, Will Cronk, brother of Jay Cronk was on the roof of the Jones Block and jumped from there to the ground. He was always a great hand to dance a jig and was able to shake one out of his legs the next morning after this two-story jump. February 7, 1912 Will Cronk, then employed as a switchman at Richland Yards, had his leg cut off by a train.)”