Knox County Texas Archives History .....Disatrous Fire Sweeps Benjamin March 26, 1959 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/txfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Dorman Holub txarchives@me.com February 20, 2015, 11:48 pm Benjamin, county seat of Knox County, suffered a fire loss on Tuesday, 24 March 1959 that is estimated as being carried at least $100,000. Insurance was carried on all of the property including drug store fixtures of Leroy Melton of Seymour, but the insurance will fall short of taking care of the losses. The fire was discovered at 8:30 pm and by midnight, the buildings had burned down, the danger was removed form the rest of the town. Most of the 500 inhabitants gathered to watch the blaze with man others from nearby places and from other towns. The Seymour fire department responded to the alam with the departments of Munday and Knox City. With the Benjamin department, the pumps soon exhaused the reserve supply kept in the tanks and the amount that came in through the main was not enough to do anything more than protect nearby property. Benjamin gets is water supply from wells across the Brazos River, nine miles from town. Some water was trucked in from Knox City. Leroy Melton, pharmacist at Feguson Drug Store has lived at Benjamin a long time was in the drug business there. He was located on the east side of the square, in one of the buildings that burned which belonged to his mother, Mrs. J.W. Melton of Benjamin. She owned the adjoining buiilidng consumed in flames. The fire caught in the attic between these two buildings, probably from the wiring. Mrs. Melton's building on the north was occupied by a grocery store, operated by W.T. Cartwright, and this was also the bus stop. The next on the south was the J.L. Galloway hardware store, Mrs. Galloway being a daughter of Mrs. Melton. South of that was a building owned by Dr. Beaver's Estates in which was the grocery and market of Gene Hamilton. Nothing was saved from the three buildings. North of the burned buildings was one that was saved, mostly because of a space between it and the fire. D.J. Brookreson's building was saved. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/tx/knox/history/other/disatrou82nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/txfiles/ File size: 2.5 Kb