When the Manteno fire whistle sounded in the late afternoon of Tuesday, Jan. 30, 1951, volunteer firefighter Paul Maisonneuve was donating a pint of blood at the Red Cross blood bank.
“As soon as their technician was through with him,” reported the Kankakee Daily Journal on Jan. 31, “he jumped up from the cot and rushed out to the fire. He remained fighting the blaze until the early hours this morning.”
On fire was a two-story building in the heart of Manteno’s business district. Located on Chestnut (now Main) Street, midway between Division Street and First Street, the structure housed the St. Aubin hardware store and five apartments.
Milton Flatt, chief of Manteno’s volunteer fire department, told the Daily Journal, “When I got there, flames were shooting out the front of the building.”
He said the fire apparently began when a kitchen stove exploded in the apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth McBride. Mrs. McBride was treated for smoke inhalation; all the other occupants of the building escaped unharmed.
“Flames from the blaze spread rapidly through the building and whipped out onto the adjoining roofs of the Dahler restaurant to the north, and the Darb theater to the south,” reported the newspaper. “Firemen concentrated hoses on the roofs and walls of the two adjoining buildings to keep the fire from spreading. Damage to the theater and the restaurant was mainly from smoke. The Darb theater was closed temporarily.”
A call for assistance in battling the blaze brought help from the Manteno State Hospital Fire Department and six nearby communities — Kankakee, Peotone, Grant Park, Momence, Bradley and Bourbonnais. Additional aid was provided by residents of the small Kankakee County village (Manteno’s population was 1,789 in the 1950 Census).
“Virtually all of Manteno pitched in to help Tuesday night, …” noted the Journal. “Fire Chief Milton Flatt reported that many male residents of the village not ordinarily members of the volunteer fire department joined forces with the firemen to help fight the blaze. … Everett Butler, owner of a department store near the fire scene, arrived at the blaze early with a supply of warm gloves and overalls for the firemen.
“Firemen and volunteer workers remained at the scene of the fire throughout the night. The Manteno American Legion home remained open to serve coffee and sandwiches to the firemen. Dahler’s restaurant, located next to the fire-ravaged building, also served coffee to the firemen and later, Jerry’s restaurant and Duke’s ice cream shop stayed open late to serve the smoke eaters hot java. … Clovis Smith, disaster chairman of the Kankakee County Red Cross chapter, was in Manteno Tuesday night and today checking the various needs of the families [displaced by the fire].”
Damage from the fire to the building and its contents (primarily the hardware store) was estimated at between $75,000 and $100,000.
“Pat St. Aubin, operator of the store and owner of the building, was in Springfield attending a business convention when the fire started,” the Journal noted. “He was expected to arrive in Manteno this afternoon to inspect the loss. The store’s stock included a large supply of hardware goods, television sets, appliances and paint. [The] only items saved from the store were a cash box containing an undisclosed sum of money, a few barrels of paint remover, and the store’s credit files.”
The newspaper related that the cash box was recovered by James Williams, the store’s acting manager, who rushed back into the burning building to do so. Ironically, Williams lost his personal wallet while saving the cash box.
Occupants, forced out of the building’s five apartments by the fire, lost all their possessions. They were Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth McBride, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Dahler, Mrs. Kathryn Nalley and her three children, and Mr. and Mrs. Dale Smith and their two children (The Smith family had moved into the building only four days earlier). Mrs. Alma Rusher, occupant of the fifth apartment, was on vacation in Minnesota on the day of the fire.
The efforts of firefighters to prevent the fire from spreading to other buildings in the community’s business district were praised by Wilbur Hendrickson, president of Manteno’s village board.
He told the Journal, “I was afraid for a while that the fire might get away from us and take part of the block. All of the firemen should be given a lot of credit for their hard work.”
https://daily-journal.com/news/klasey-a-1951-fire-in-manteno/article_a48e52d8-d9e5-11ef-8459-237301b449e8.html