Up in Smoke

I said I couldn't image a barn on Water Street; you know what else I can't image there? — a cigar factory. And yet we know one existed from the newspapers reports of its destruction by fire in February 1917.

The factory belonged Calvin L. Fleming, though perhaps "factory" is too grand a word: it was a wooden workshop standing on the same lot as Calvin's house. Early on the morning of February 6, Calvin walked across the yard from house to factory, where he lit a fire in the stove to warm the building for his day's work. Around 7 a.m. he went back to the house to eat breakfast. A few minutes later, a glance out the window of his house gave him a shock: the cigar factory was in flames.

Calvin quickly placed a call to the fire department. As he waited for them to arrive, he might have considered braving the flames to try to rescue some of his equipment and materials, until he remembered the shotguns and shells stored in the factory, which could be touched off by the fire at any moment.

By the time the firemen arrived, the building was completely engulfed. The firemen could do no more than keep the fire from spreading.

The factory was destroyed, along with all of Calvin's equipment and materials, which included a large number of finished cigars. Estimates of those casualties ranged from 10,000 to 13,000. This was tragedy on a massive scale.

And Calvin had no insurance. He'd let his policy lapse on the first of the year. (According to one source, he did so because he'd already entered an agreement to sell the whole property to someone else so he could move his family and work "nearer town"). So the monetary loss, estimated to be as much as $1,800, was all his own.

He may have lacked foresight, but we can admire his resilience: before the sun had set on the ashes of his enterprise, he had already placed an order for lumber to build a new factory, and contracted with carpenters to start work the next morning. By the time the weekly Hobart newspapers reported on the disaster, Calvin's new factory was almost ready for occupancy. And by mid-month, Calvin was again manufacturing cigars.

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Calvin soon diversified his business enterprise in a way that surprised me. In March the old Hobart amusement park (standing, I believe, on land that is now Jerry Pavese Park) was auctioned off by the county for back taxes, and the highest bidder was "Calvin L. Fleming, the local cigar manufacturer." The principal structure on the property was a dilapidated roller coaster. It was beyond fixing up. Calvin intended to salvage its lumber for construction purposes.

The following month, Calvin announced to the public that he was now sales agent for all the remaining lots in the subdivision lying along both sides of Third Street from the streetcar barns (the west bank of the Deep River) at least as far, I believe, as present-day Wisconsin Street.

I've heard that some of the houses along that part of Third Street were built with lumber from the old roller coaster. I suppose we can thank Calvin Fleming for that.


Sources:
♦ "C.L. Fleming Loses Cigar Factory and Contents by Fire." Hobart News 8 Feb. 1917.
♦ "Fleming Cigar Factory Burns." Hobart Gazette 9 Feb. 1917.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 30 Mar. 1917.
♦ "Making Cigars Again." Hobart Gazette 16 Feb. 1917.
♦ "Notice to the Public." Hobart Gazette 20 Apr. 1917.