An interesting presentation by Town of Rockland Historian Dr. Joyce Conroy's was made at the Nov. 19 Town board meeting.
Her topic for that evening was the big fire that engulfed much of the Roscoe Main Street business district on November 19, 1916.
Dr. Conroy, who is also the director of the Roscoe Library, started her presentation by describing what was formerly known on Roscoe's Main Street as the Mauer Building and that Mr. Mauer lived in Middletown, NY and that he had tenants in the building including a Bowling Alley-Pool Parlor-Lunch Room and another tenant known as Sipple Bros. Meat Market.
Upstairs was an apartment occupied by Ms. Sipple and her son and Thanksgiving visitors.
Sometime during the night a fire started in the lunch room because somehow the stove vents were left open and the fire was not banked for the night.
Historian Conroy noted that Ms. Sipple was awakened because the windows exploded out as the fire really got hot and Ms. Sipple, her son and guests could only escape by jumping out the second floor windows because when they first opened the doors to the stairway they saw nothing but flames.
Ms. Sipple accomplished sounding the alarm and down at the Railroad depot the actual fire alarm was sounded from a whistle on the scoop (a small two-engine train) and this was used as that time to call out the fire department and their horse and wagon (fire truck apparatus).
There were a few hydrants but not too many and firemen started pumping water but the hose catches on fire and the water pressure drops and firemen can's get to the hydrant because the hose is too hot.
Now that we have really spiked your interest as to what happens next....we'll close this Part 1 section of our column and will continue this drama and the remainder of this great historical presentation in Part 2 of our column next week.
Town of Rockland Historian Dr. Joyce Conroy gives an interesting account of the famous November 19, 1916 Main Street fire in Roscoe.
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