Owen County (Indiana) Democrat, March 18, 1915, p. 1. NOTE: The text noted
below was abstracted by Randi Richardson from a lengthier article.
The Indiana Wood Product Company, known to Owen County people as White's
Mill, caught fire Sunday night shortly after eight o'clock and completely
gutted the largest portion of the factory entailing a loss of $40,000 with
only about one-third that amount in insurance. No one in authority seems to
know exactly how the flames originated, but the consensus of opinion seems
to be that they caught from a dynamo, as the factory had its own lighting
system...
The hottest and most dangerous portion of the building were the handle and
clothespin departments where thousands of well seasoned handles and a few
million tinder-like clothespins were piled and boxed ready for shipment.
The big streams of water would put out the fire in one place only to scatter
the fragments to other places and then flames would break forth in greater
volume and that portion of the big factory became a seething, hissing mass
of whirling flames and smoke...
.