Rollie Krause was an eyewitness to the greatest catastrophe in Kewanee history.
And while Kewanee’s great downtown fire happened 83 years ago, Krause remembers it like it was yesterday.
At a recent meeting of the Henry County Genealogical Society, Krause answered questions about that fateful night in April of 1942 when it seemed like “the whole town was burning.”
Krause was interviewed by Kewanee historian Dean Karau for a video he created about the fire.
The video, which is on YouTube, was shown at the genealogical society meeting.
In it, Krause said he and his mother were staying with his sister at a West Mill Street home when his sister’s father-in-law phoned. The caller was the desk sergeant at the police department and reported that “the whole town’s on fire!”
Krause and his relatives wanted to see what was going on, so they walked up to Division Street, where they hailed a cab and got a ride uptown.
It wasn’t the whole town that was burning, but it must have seemed that way. Before it was finally brought under control, three city blocks downtown had been consumed.
The fire broke out in the Kewanee Dry Goods store in the 100 block of South Tremont Street, in the area now occupied by Union Federal Savings and Loan.
Krause described how cinders from that burning building were blown by the wind to nearby buildings. The building across the street from the dry goods store, occupied by JC Penney and the Kirley and Sons menswear business (on the present-day site of the Salvation Army and The Kewanee Voice) were among the first to catch fire.
Cinders also were blown north and east. The Rialto Theater, which was on the west side of the alley in the 100 block of West Second Street, was consumed by the flames.
Some buildings on the south side of the 200 block of West Second were also destroyed. Firefighters from Kewanee and nearby fire departments finally brought the flames under control at Second and Chestnut streets.
Krause and his family saw it happen.
“It was very exciting for us to be able to watch something like that,” he said. “It was like something you might have seen in a movie.”
When the flames were finally out, it was determined that 20 buildings burned down, and 59 businesses were destroyed.
Krause said people continued to head downtown in the days following the fire to see the stunning aftermath. Two- and three-story buildings that had been home to those businesses were turned to mountains of ash and twisted steel girders.
He said it took two weeks for the debris to cool enough that salvage crews could begin hauling it way. Krause said he didn’t know where they took the rubble.
Soon after the fire Kewanee Mayor Mark Saunders said the city must rebuild and rebuild it did. Krause said new homes for Penney and Kirley’s were among the first new buildings to be completed.
Since World War II was going on, the rebuilding probably didn’t happen as fast as it might have otherwise. But the evidence of the fire remains clearly visible today in the newer buildings that stand where the fire ravaged while older buildings are still intact in other parts of downtown.
