Liberty Hose Co. No. 2 - Incident Detail #1322

Fire destroyed Hoffman?s St. Peters United Church of Christ located between Pillow and Loyalton. Loss was $60,000.00. Firemen were hampered by a lack of water and booster tanks had to be filled at Troutman?s Dam, a half mile from the scene. Firemen were on the scene several hours. The Gratz Fire Company was assisted by the Valley View Fire Company, Hegins Fire Company, Liberty Hose Company No. 2 of Lykens, Berrysburg and Community Fire Company, Reliance Hose Company No. 1 of Elizabethville, Millersburg Fire Company, Halifax and Community Fire Company, Fisherville Fire Company, Duncannon Fire Company and Pine Grove Fire Company.

Elizabethville's Tom Welker remembers:

It was a Friday evening and I was at the movies with my parents, at the Budd Theatre in Lykens. My Dad was Lykens' Assistant Engineer at the time. Most pumpers in the area were limited to 250 to 300 gallon tanks with 30 gallon per minute booster lines as the first off line in rural areas. That's not much of a challenge for a working Church fire. Gratz would have had a 1940's era Ford open cab pumper, Elizabethville: a 1934 Studebaker, Lykens: a 1941 International, Fisherville had their Federal pumper, Millersburg: the 1940's era International, Hegins had a Square tank tanker on a Studebaker chassis that was fabricated by Swabs. I remember the next day my Dad took us for a ride to see it. It was a smoking hole in the ground. A new Church was built directly across the street from the one that burned.