 Remnants of fire remain
By
Dave Olson,The Forum
Published Friday, February 11, 2005
Photo caption: Special to the Forum from Minnesota State
University Moorhead A 1930 fire destroyed Old Main, the primary building
on campus for what is now Minnesota State University Moorhead. Above, a
photo shows the charred remains of the building, estimated at a $750,000
loss at the time. Before the fire, Old Main stretched a city block
(inset).
After 75 years, a smidgen of guilt still flavors Elvina Loftness'
memory of the worst disaster ever to hit the Minnesota State University
Moorhead campus and perhaps the largest fire in Moorhead history.
It was the evening of Feb. 9, 1930, a Sunday.
Loftness, now 97, was a student at what was then Moorhead State
Teachers College.
A major project was due the next day, but Loftness hadn't even started
on it.
Looking out her dormitory window at Old Main, a block-long castle of a
building housing most of the school, Loftness wished it would burn down
and relieve her of the assignment.
A short time later, that's exactly what happened.
"That powerful wish did it," Loftness joked by phone Thursday
from her home in St. Paul.
Her voice took on a serious tone, however, when she described the
fire's aftermath.
"It was a terrible time for the college. It was miserable,"
said Loftness, who along with many of the school's 750 students returned
home after the fire to wait until alternative classrooms could be found.
A week later, the students returned, attending class in several homes
located on campus.
Lessons were also conducted in the rooms and hallways of the buildings
that still stood, including two women's dormitories, Comstock Hall and
what is now referred to as Weld Hall, where the day after the fire faculty
and students gathered for a convocation.
It turned into a pep rally, setting in motion a push to rebuild the
school, which, because it was the Great Depression, was by no means a
given, said Clarence "Soc" Glasrud, an alumnus and professor
emeritus who has written a history of the university.
"There were a good many suggestions at the time, one of them was
we already had more teachers than we needed," said Glasrud, who
enrolled at MSTC in the fall of 1930 and was an editor of the 1931
yearbook.
While state officials debated whether and where to rebuild, the cities
of Crookston and Fergus Falls lobbied to be the school's new home, said
Terry Shoptaugh, MSUM archivist.
Thanks to the influence of people like Solomon Comstock, a former
legislator from Moorhead, state lawmakers appropriated nearly a million
dollars to build four new buildings on the campus, including MacLean Hall,
which stands where Old Main once stood.
In addition to new structures, the fire inspired a fresh name for the
school's athletic teams.
Before the disaster, teams were called the Peds, short for pedagogue, a
Latin word for teacher.
"The fighting Peds just didn't sound right," Shoptaugh said.
"When the new buildings were dedicated in 1933, somebody said,
'This is a chance to get a better name for a team.' '' Shoptaugh said.
"They said, 'We've recovered from a fire, let's call ourselves the
Dragons.' It was a defiance thing," he said.
The 1930 fire may be the largest in the history of Moorhead, though an
October 1967 blaze that destroyed most of a downtown block is a close
rival, Assistant Fire Chief Clay Dietrich said.
The 1967 fire destroyed the Waterman's Department store as well as an
adjacent building on Center Avenue, causing more than $500,000 worth of
damage, according to newspaper articles from the time.
The conflagration that consumed Old Main, built in 1888, started when a
fuse box in the lower level of the building caught fire, Shoptaugh said.
N.E. Eckberg, chief engineer of the campus, discovered the fire about 9
p.m. while doing an inspection of the building.
Although initially confined to the fuse box, the fire spread to a
wooden air shaft and from there flames quickly traveled throughout the
building.
No one was hurt in the fire, but efforts to fight the blaze in
temperatures that approached 20 below zero were futile, as were attempts
by some to throw items to safety before flames reached them.
Loftness recalled seeing a piano pushed from an upper story window.
The sound it made when it hit the ground was less than musical, she
said.
"Of course, it didn't save the piano at all. It was a mess,"
she said.
Beth Dille attended kindergarten classes in Old Main in 1930.
"We all brought our dolls to school because we were cutting out
costumes for them," said Dille, wife of Roland Dille, a former
president of the college.
Dille said she made a Japanese kimono for her doll, Rosie.
The outfit and the doll were in the school the night disaster struck.
"So, Rosie went up in smoke," Dille said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Olson at (701) 241-5555
Moorhead Fire & Rescue Expanded Info Section
The pictures below are from the Waterman's fire. Further information
may be available by contacting the Clay County Historical Society.
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