Champion Glassworks buildings burn

FIRE IN COVINGTON THIS MORNING

Dr. Thomas' Tobacco Warehouse Destroyed

MORE THAW HALF A MILLION POUNDS

OF TOBACCO BURNED.

Loss $80,000 — Insurance $40,000

About half-past twelve o’clock this morning a great sheet of red light in the southern horizon indicated the existence of a big fire over in South Covington.

The peculiar character of the smoke was a no­ticeable feature. It had a silvery whiteness, which at times the glare of the flames rendered dazzling.

Upon approaching it the odor of tobacco indi­cated that our neighbor on the other side of the river were indulging in the extravagant luxury of a prodigious smoke with five hundred hogsheads of tobacco in the bowl of her monstrous pipe. It was the tobacco warehouse of Dr. E. R. W. Thomas, situated on the east side of Greenup street, between Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets. The structure was of frame, one story, with a high, steep roof, and was about two hundred feet long by one hundred feet wide. Formerly it was used as glass-works, and is still designated as the Champion Glass-works. Near the west end still is standing a huge cupola, a monument of the use to which the building was formerly applied.

How the fire started is not clearly understood. it is very strongly suspected that it was the work of an incendiary. There had been no fire used in the building during the day or evening, and none was required there for any purpose at anytime, as the building was only a store-house for leaf tobacco.

The flames were first discovered breaking out on the roof near the cupola by some late street passenger, who gave the alarm. The efforts of the Fire Department were of no avail. The wooden shell of a building, together with the hogsheads and their contents, the empty boxes and other debris to be found about such buildings formed fuel to feed the flames, and give them power to set at defiance all efforts to stay their progress. Building and contents in less than two hours, were reduced to ashes. Fortunately there were no other buildings near enough to be endangered by the flames. The Fire Department seemed to rely almost entirely upon the fire-plugs for supplies of water. At all events their engines were not employed. The fire-plugs, however, did excellent service.

There were in the building five hundred hogs heads of leaf tobacco and above half a million pounds, worth eighty thousand dollars perhaps more. The insurance is about half that amount, or forty thousand dollars in Cincinnati and Covington companies. The building was old, and its value is to insignificant as to have no title to be taken into the account in the loss.

Does not the frequency of these destructive fire indicate the good policy, at least, of insurance men and property-owners banding together to institute a watch, and an investigation to discover if they are not the result of some wicked band of desperadoes or fanatics? They seem to be too frequent to be attributable to accident.