Fire on Loughney's Property - 1906

The Scranton Times - Minooka, July 5, 1906

The people of Minooka should take warning from yesterday’s narrow escape of a conflagration that for a time threatened to wipe out a thickly populated section of the town. About 1:30 o’clock yesterday afternoon fire broke out in a barn in the rear of Loughney’s property, facing on Murphy’s court. By the time it was discovered the building was a seething mass of flames. There was no running water to be had other than that furnished by a garden hose from a very weak pressure, and for a time it looked as though the Fourth in Minooka would be marked by a destructive fire in which several families would be made homeless.

Fortunately hundreds of men were in the neighborhood at the time and all flocked to the scene and began a heroic battle against the raging fire which leaped from the burning barn and began to lick up the residence of Michael Flynn. That was where the work of the willing hands counted, as they succeeded, with the aid of a bucket brigade, to extinguish the fire in the Flynn residence and thus choked off the flames. Had the Flynn residence got beyond control of the workers nothing could be done to save the residence of Thomas Coyne, on the other side, with the chances in favor of the fire king engulfing Coyne’s hotel in its path and taking in the entire block of Main Street.

A fire alarm was turned in at the city line box, and No. 5 company of South Scranton responded, but by this time the bucket brigade had thwarted the efforts of the raging elements of fire and the company, with Chief Ferber, who so kindly volunteered to come to the rescue, returned to Scranton. The origin of the fire, it is thought was a lighted firecracker, which found its way into the barn. Minooka is badly in need of fire protection, and it behooves the residents of this town to try and do something towards organizing a company.

Contributed by Maria Montoro Edwards

Sometime after 1906

Could have used this at the
Lougney fire