As most of you know, I am finishing my book "Dancing With the Devil ". It is a book of stories about the Streator Fire Dept. I am now working on the Williams Hardware Explosion and fire which occurred on July 14, 1958. It took the lives of 6 people and destroyed what was one of the largest hardware stores in Northern Illinois. It took 12 fire departments over 12 hours to put it out. I have read everything I could get my hands on to prepare this chapter. I know the story by heart,so it should be easy to write..but it isn't. Most of the reports which went out over the newswires nationwide varied wildly in the details...Rumors were flying(as they often do in a small town) I have read accounts from newspapers all over the United States about what was happening on South Vermillion St on that muggy July day. Most of it I simply dismissed because it was so off what I knew had happened. With my education in history I learned that there are many sides to a story : our Professors favorite example was The is a collision between 2 cars at a busy intersection..how many sides to that story ? Well there's the 2 drivers, the people following them, the people standing on all 4 corners waiting to cross the street, the people walking down the sidewalk..etc..each individual tells the story differently..the way THEY saw it happen..and the all vary widely in the details. That is the way that it has been for me with this story. The details vary wildly to the point where I think they just made some of it up to make the story more dramatic...there were 30-40 people trapped (false) they had found more bodies than was reported (rumor..false), there were two people trapped on the 2nd floor (false) and on and on... Streator fireman Lawerence McGurk was interviewed for the Ottawa Republican Times. He was injured after being blown off a ladder while trying to rescue a man who was trapped on the second floor..This was after he and a volunteer (Earl Pollett) had made there way into the burning building to rescue a woman trapped on the first floor..He tried three times to get to the man on his fourth attempt, an explosion occurred in the basement and McGurk and the ladder he was on were enveloped in a fireball and he was blown approx 15 feet out into the middle of a debris filled Vermillion St. This ended any more rescue attempts. The front of the building was so hot that a hose had been played on McGurk to keep his clothing from catching fire on his last trip up the ladder. McGurk had almost reached the window when the explosion occurred. The man, later identified as George Blaine, store clerk , had appeared at the window screaming for help, hair and clothing ablaze. He was later found just inside the window.
McGurk said he was jut about to reach for the window, when the next thing he knew, he was being dragged onto the sidewalk across the street. He sustained burns and a sprained ankle in the fall. He figured he had slid back down the ladder because he wasnt seriously hurt. He was suprised when he heard that he had been blown off the ladder..this entire story was in the Ottawa paper..non of it was in the Streator paper...His heroics are the center of my chapter, he deserves the recognition....I just hope that I tell these stories in an interesting way that people will enjoy reading and learning a little about the history iof the Streator Fire Dept and Streator itself.
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