Sommer & Sons

DISASTROUS FIRE AT WEISER – Sommer & Sons Store Destroyed by Flames at 1 o’clock this morning. -The Loss Believed to Amount to $20,000 –  After a Desperate Battle the Threatened Vendome Hotel Is Saved from the Devouring Element

(Special to The Statesman – Weiser)

February 15 – 1 am. Every able bodied man here is fighting the dreaded fire fiend. An hour since flames were discovered coming from the wareroom in the rear of Sommer & Sons store. Coal oil stored there was on fire and beyond control when discovered.

A rally was at once made to remove the merchandise but a few fleeting moments sufficed to envelop the building in flames and drive the workers away. The building was gone and the loss to Sommer & Sons will at a guess reach $20,000 with some insurance. The store jutted against the $20,000 Vendome Hotel and it looked hopeless to attempt to save that magnificent structure but as there were but two vulnerable points in its back wall facing the fire the desperate battle of 100 willing men with buckets has been successful. As your correspondent writes this dispatch the hotel building is pronounced safe by all.

From The Idaho Statesman, February 15, 1894, Page 1