At the time of the fire, the plant was owned by US Steel Company, which acquired the local company’s vast holdings in 1901. But, for some unknown reason, at the time of the fire, the plant had been closed for several months and the men laid off. At the time, the plant was the largest in the country making seamless tubes and was in operation 24 hours a day with a monthly payroll of more than $40,000. According to the Shelby Daily Globe, “Nearly every man in Shelby has at one time in his life been an employee of the tube company.”

The loss was estimated to be between $500,000 to $1 million.

Costly mistakes

 

The fire was first discovered in the shipping room about 10 p.m. June 18 by Philip Strouse, the night watchman. Although the cause of the fire was never determined, some surmised that waste material ignited through combustion and set the shipping material on fire. There were several tons of tubes already boxed up to ship, but the company was awaiting payment before shipping.

The blaze had already become too large to be extinguished, further hampered by the fact that as a cost-saving measure, the company had shut off water to the plant during the shut-down. This proved to be a costly error.

C.A. Moyer and James Brubaker were the first two men to arrive at the fire, as they were on West Main Street en route home when they saw the blaze. The door to the factory was locked. Brubaker looked into the shipping room and realizing that the fire was quickly getting out of control, telephoned the central operator to report the fire, located in district one. The operator, however, reported the fire as being in district eleven, causing panic that the flour mill east of town was on fire and delaying response to the actual fire.

Reports of the fire also mention that Strouse called in a fire alarm when he realized his plight. The Shelby Fire Department, along with members of the tube company’s own fire department, quickly responded, but the fire had already spread to other buildings to the south, despite strong north winds. Some who witnessed the fire thought the flames followed the gas lines, but no doubt the buildings themselves, soaked with grease and oil, fed the flames.

Mayor C.B. Huber arrived at the scene of the fire and telephoned the Mansfield, Galion and Crestline fire departments for assistance. Mansfield, upon receiving the word, loaded 1,000 feet of hose on a Mansfield & Shelby car and the run was made in 23 minutes from Bowman Street, according to reports from the Globe. Six fire departments from Mansfield also came to aid. A special train consisting of three cars and caboose was made up at Galion and loaded with an engine. The train stopped in Crestline to load more hose and men. Although they responded quickly, their fire equipment, however, was not unloaded as the plant was nearly burned to the ground by the time they arrived.

The Valliant Attempt

The first stream was thrown on the four-story brick stockroom with the Shelby Fire Department and tube works employees working side by side. The Globe reported on what could only be described as an inferno –

Marshall Simon was frog hunting in the vicinity of Ganges, about seven miles away, when he heard the fire alarm and then could see the fire from that distance. Farmers for eight or ten miles around could see the city light up and hundreds of them drove into Shelby to see the fire. About 3,000 townspeople arrived at the plant to see the sight.

When the Mansfield firemen arrived with their thousand feet of hose, 500 of it was placed in the engine house and the other 500 was taken to West Main Street to be used in case of emergency, as worry about nearby homes catching fire grew.

Sparks carried for many blocks to the west and north parts of town, falling on roofs and starting half a dozen fires, but the owners were able to put them out. The grocery store of J C Taylor caught fire as did the Vickroy residence and the Catholic school building, but all were extinguished.

The hose was laid across the Big Four train tracks and traffic on Main Street was blocked. As a fire crept toward the 1,000-barrel water tank which towered 80 feet above the works, the crowd watched as the supports were burned away and the tank fell across the Big Four tracks with a thundering crash. Four boxcars loaded with tubing and steel ready for shipment burned on the tracks.

A company foreman warned firemen to stay clear of the oil house as there were four large tanks containing thousands of barrels of crude oil. Had the fire reached the tanks, the explosion would have been catastrophic; however, the building somehow was spared.

The 350-foot-long steel building was the last one to fall victim to the flames; one of the hardest fights occurred at the bench room. Firemen attached 12 streams of water to various areas of the fire, but to little effect. By 2 a.m., the fire chief left an assistant in charge and instructions to leave three or four streams trained on the fire overnight. By morning, R.P. Bricker, superintendent of the Shelby Water Company, said more than one million gallons of water had been used to fight the fire.

 

Departments burned included: factory offices, storeroom, cut off department, basement, carpenter shop, lumber for carpenter supply, sulfate of iron factory, third story carpenter department, straightening room, shipping department, plumbing department, annealing department, rolling mills, seven boiler rooms, hot saw, piercer and engine department, pickling rooms, annealing room, bench room, bench room engine department, machine room, electric light plant, hammer department, shipping department in new building, five boilers, steel building, machine room, stockroom, finishing department, gas producers, east and west sides, straightening room, and blacksmith shop.

Shelby’s livelihood, the Shelby Steel Tube Company, burned to the ground June 18, 1908 in just over an hour, leaving more than 800 men without jobs and the city potentially in ruins. But by sheer determination, Shelbians raised funding and the plant was back in operation, and back under local ownership, within a year.

At the time of the fire, the plant was owned by US Steel Company, which acquired the local company’s vast holdings in 1901. But, for some unknown reason, at the time of the fire, the plant had been closed for several months and the men laid off. At the time, the plant was the largest in the country making seamless tubes and was in operation 24 hours a day with a monthly payroll of more than $40,000.

Within days of the fire, rumors spread that the plant would not be rebuilt in Shelby.

A petition, signed by 3,000 merchants, employees, citizens and manufacturers, was sent to the corporation’s office in Pittsburgh, with the message that if the tube plant were removed from Shelby, 1,000 expert tubemakers who owned property in the town would lose their homes. If the company chose not to rebuild in Shelby, the original stockholders of the Shelby Steel Tube Company would rebuild it as an independent plant.

Just a week after the fire, citing a reduced demand for steel tubing, U. S. Steel Company announced that it would not rebuild the plant. John C. Fish, general manager of the Shelby Lamp Company, took up the matter with his business associates and quickly set in place a plan.

Less than two weeks after the fire, Fish presented his plan at a meeting June 30 at City Hall. Thomas J. Green, a lawyer with the Skiles firm, called the meeting to order with a brief talk about the abilities of Shelby tube workmen and the necessity of employing the men recently put out by the fire.

Fish followed with an hour-long talk on the possibilities of the steel tube business, the benefit of being called the birthplace of steel tubing in America and the ready workforce of highly trained men waiting to work again. His comments met with enthusiastic and repeated cheers from tube workers and businessmen in attendance.

Fish suggested that a committee of 25 be named to organize, take subscriptions of stock, and find a location for the factory. The committee was appointed from nearly every line of business and manufacturer throughout the city and the meeting adjourned. The committee remained and was in session until nearly midnight working out the details.

They named the new company the Seamless Tube Company of Shelby, Ohio. Jonas Feighner, who originally raised subscriptions to build the first steel plant, was appointed the chairman of the committee on stock subscriptions. The committee on the location of the works was appointed consisting of Victor O. Peters, Louis A. Portner, H.K. Beck, J.J. Metzger and H.W. Hildebrandt.

Another committee composed of Fish, Green and Judge Edwin Mansfield was appointed to form the general plan of the organization and create the bylaws.

The committee of 25 decided upon the following important features in connection with the organization of the company: The company shall be incorporated for $500,000; the preferred stock shall amount to $150,000 guaranteed at 7 percent dividend; the common stock shall amount to $350,000 with a 12 percent dividend after the preferred stock shall receive 7 percent.

The planning group quickly set a public meeting on July 2 at the Opera House. The Shelby band, secured to lend some festivity to the event, met a group of about 100 young men called the Hell Chasers’ Association, all in shirtwaist costume, bareheaded and carrying an armload of Roman candles, at the square. When the band started for the Opera House, they were followed by a stream of fire which certainly reminded one of the Fourth of July, according to an account in the Shelby Daily Globe. The opera house was packed with men, women and children, much to the delight of the organizers.

Members of the Hell Chaser’s Association, led by well-known vocalist Prof. James G. VanHorn, sang a song created for the occasion –

The song met with thundering applause from the audience.

The minutes of the last meeting and committee meeting were read and several men spoke to the group.
George M. Skiles, who was one of the original stockholders of the Shelby Tube Company, said, “I see no reason why a tube plant should not be one of the best investments you could make. When my brother and I put our names down for stock in the old tube company we had to borrow the money to pay it. And when called upon to invest in other industries of the town I have always been compelled to borrow the money to do so. It will all come back to us and if we all go together we cannot make a mistake.”

Judge Mansfield added, “It is Independence Day in Shelby. For five years, we have been dependent upon the United States Steel Corporation. From time to time it has been heralded on the streets that the corporation would close down their plant here and remove it. Property values would go down and working men would be fearful lest they lose their positions…The calamity which overtook us when the works burned may prove a blessing.”
Green explained the difference between common and preferred stock. The Shelby Water Company would be the designated location to sign for the stock.

In order to gauge interest, Green asked R.P Bricker, John Feighner, Jack Kennedy, F.C. Schiffer, Fred Sutter, Harry Sotzen, Howard Seltzer and R.C. Skiles to act as tellers and work through the audience to see what the people thought they might subscribe. Tablets were passed from one row of seats to the other. When they were taken up, many signed for one to five or five to ten shares.

Green said many out of town people had expressed their intention in subscribing for stock, but that he thought that $200,000 of the capital should be raised in Shelby and the vicinity. G.M. Skiles ended the meeting by announcing that he would double his subscriptions if the appropriate amount of money had not been raised by the deadline.

By the time of the next stockholders meeting on July 25, 1908, Jonas Feighner, chairman of the soliciting committee, reported that $171,000 had been subscribed. About 500 people, mostly stockholders packed city hall for the meeting. J.C. Fish announced that the National Lamp Co. was sending a check for $5,000 for Tube Co. stock. Boosters pledged to sell at least one more share of stock to a friend.

A board of directors was chosen with J.C. Fish as president, G.M. Skiles as vice president, Charles S. Hook as second vice president, Howard Seltzer as secretary, James Brubaker as treasurer, and A.C. Morse as general manager. The rest of the board included: Joe Seltzer, Roger Heath, Edwin Mansfield, H.W. Hildebrant, T.J. Green, Jonas Feighner, V.O. Peters, Robert Greer, J.W. Williams, R.P. Bricker, and C.S. Moore.

A month later, the board acquired the property of the former tube works and the new factory was built upon the foundations that supported the burned buildings. The purchase saved $100,000 in construction and put the company six months ahead where they might have been in building an entirely new factory. The company name was changed to Ohio Seamless Tube Company.

The piercing of the first billet with new state-of-the-art equipment was accomplished March 25, 1909, just nine months after the fire. Construction of the plant was nearly complete, with four benches to set and four furnaces to finish.

Nearly 2,500 stockholders and their friends were treated May 11, 1909 to a demonstration of the factory operations from piercing of the solid billets to the finishing room, where the billets were cut to proper lengths for shipment. The piercer turned out four billets per minute for an enthusiastic audience. After a round of speeches by board members, another $82,800 stock subscriptions were sold, to top off the $236,000 already raised. People from Cleveland and New York, as well as throughout the area, turned out to see the new mill.

The company had expected to start in with about 50 tons of steel and increase each month, but by the end of the first month of operation in mid-May, more than 300 tons had already been milled and more could have been cut if the final bench room and rolling mill were equipped. The machine room worked day and night. Contracts came in from the government for fire engine flues, with inquiries for marine boiler flues. Another $20,000 worth of automobile tubing was ordered by a company in Cleveland.

John C. Fish never saw his plan fully realized. He died April 16, 1909 at Lakeside Hospital in Cleveland.

 photo c. 1909

 photo c. 1910