Hereford Pavilion Fire

“When the sun rose last Saturday morning, there lay upon a plat of ground in the north part of Stronghurst, within a circle of less than a hundred feet, 153 charred and smoking animal carcasses and a pile of ashes, to mark the spot where the evening before had stood a fine livestock pavilion, which was the pride of the town, filled with sleek, pure-bred Hereford cattle of the choicest lineage and individual quality.” - Stronghurst Graphic, February 2, 1922

Andrew Postle, The Quill

On Friday, January 27, 1922, Dale Dodds and Robert Vaughan retired to the cots that were set up in the office of the Henderson County Hereford Association’s Sale Pavilion in Stronghurst. They were in charge of watching over their fathers’ 153 head of cattle that were set to be auctioned off later that week by Col. Reppert, a well-known Hereford auctioneer at the time.

At about 3:00 a.m. Saturday morning, the two boys were awakened by an uproar in the pavilion. When they flung open the door into the sale arena, they were met with a wall of flames.  The pair was lucky to be able to get out through an office window. They telephoned for help, but by the time the firemen and horse-drawn hose cart arrived, no attempt was made to put out the flames, as the entire round roof was ablaze and the bellowing of the animals had ceased.

How the fire started is a mystery. A spark from a passing steam train, a stove containing a live coal being knocked over by an animal getting loose, a cigarette stub carelessly thrown, and many other theories have been put forward. The one thing that is certain is that the pavilion was loaded with hay and straw, and the ventilator on the roof being open made a small fire become an out-of-control one very quickly. The next morning the scene was a gruesome one. 

According to The Graphic: “The position of the carcasses indicated something of the frenzy which must have possessed the animals before death overtook them. Some were piled in heaps, some were in a half-erect position as though they had attempted to jump over the mangers in front of them, some were lying flat on their stomachs, others on their backs; some were lying isolated from the others in the center of the ring, showing that they had freed themselves and dashed out into the sale arena before dropping.”

Blanche Beardsley Galbraith, who lived not far away, said that for months she could not sleep as she kept hearing the frantic bellowing of the cattle and could smell the smoke. Hundreds of citizens from neighboring communities took a trip over to Stronghurst to see the carnage and reported the sickening sight.

This loss was no doubt a big blow to Stronghurst's morale and economy. Not only was the community proud of their fine sale pavilion; at the time, Stronghurst was the largest livestock shipping point along the Santa Fe Railway between Kansas City and Chicago.

The Henderson County Hereford Association had Thurman Steffey, a skilled local carpenter, build the circular pavilion in the winter of 1917–18 for around $7,000 on the north side of the train tracks just east of Logan Street. The pavilion was a circular structure, 95 feet in diameter and included stalls for the livestock and  a large sale ring in the center surrounded by tiers of seats able to accommodate more than a thousand spectators.

In the four years since its construction, $232,470 (just shy of $4.5 million today) worth of Hereford cattle had changed hands in its auction ring. This included the bull Marvel’s Pride that sold for a record-breaking $14,500 (almost $250K today) in December of 1919.

The February 2, 1922, auction promised to be another big sale for local cattlemen H. N. Vaughan and Tom Dodds. It featured a five-year-old bull named Wizard Atlas that was claimed to be one of the best in the state and Gay Lad Gem, a two-year-old bull that according to The Graphic was “pronounced by competent judges to be one of the best Polled Hereford bulls in the United States.”

The cattle in the building were insured for $52,000, but the loss was more than monetary. From the January 31 Dallas City Review: “Many of the cattle burned were famous sires of the Polled Hereford strain, and their value to the world would be impossible to place in actual dollars and cents.” The devastating fire marked a somber turning point for Stronghurst. In a flash a jewel of the community disappeared as well as the predominance of Hereford cattle in Henderson County.