TRR photo by Patty Aakre Anthony Kaiser, President, Mike Kelly, Craig Burkle, fire chief, and Tom Wood, field day chair, pose in the fire house. (Click for larger image)

The big fire at the Tegeler Store (1945)

Oral History with Charlie Knapp

“The 1945 fire at the Tegeler store is a fire I remember real well because it affected us directly—the barbershop burned. It may have started back in Tegeler’s store, in the back end of it.

“Of course, those days, everybody had their own little heating situation, and they had one of those ceramic kind of thing, and it stood maybe five or six foot high, and that provided [heat for] the store. But back in that area also is where Tegeler had his clothing. So I think probably something happened with the stove and the clothing to get it going.

“Nobody died. Fortunately a man by the name of Joe Legner... was working in Callicoon at the time. He used to take the train—he was working in the station, I guess, and you could ride the train back. He was going up the street at 3:00 o’clock in the morning and he spotted this fire.  He immediately got all the people out, which was fortunate. Otherwise, somebody would have burned up for sure. And at this time, he called the fire department.

“Of course you had fire departments from the surrounding area. This was a big building similar to   [the Arlington Hotel] across the street with a porch on it. [It was] three stories instead of four. But it was a real bad fire, and it was the first part of March, below zero. Everything froze. The street was iced. They were pumping water from the pond, all the hydrants, anyplace they could get it. They had firefighters from all over—a real tough fire…

Charlie Knapp has been cutting hair just about as long as he has been a member of the Narrowsburg Fire Department, for over 50 years. He talks about a memorable fire at the Gebhart Building on Main Street (present site of the Fleet Bank) at which fire departments from Lava, Beach Lake, Honesdale, Lake Huntington and Callicoon assisted.”