Girton Manufacturing Co. fire 1987
During the early
morning, just after midnight, Tuesday, September 29th,1987, a fire was
discovered in the middle of the center section of the Girton Manufacturing Co. manufacturing building on Third Street in
Millville, PA. It had progressed a short way along the roof and had broken
through showing flames that caused a call to the local fire company. They
reported and called for help from sister companies. Before the event was over,
more than 25 pieces of equipment from seven fire companies were on the scene.
At first, the
fire moved slowly into the high roof of that section of the building but soon the
lower roof line of the two adjacent sections was involved. As it broke through
those roofs it spread rapidly. The heat became so intense that the pieces of
material afire were carried high into the air and as the low breeze moved east
toward the residential end of the town it fell on the homes and grounds there.
Fire equipment was dispatched uptown to prevent a spread there.
Many pressurized
containers of oxygen and acetylene were heated to the point that the valves on
them were blown off. Many exploded with loud reports, and some became
projectiles that wormed or shot their way through the inferno. The flames
consumed the eastern, older sections faster. The wooden trusses and deck had
been covered with forty-plus years of tar as regular maintenance. Inches deep,
it burns with heat more intense than the supporting wood. 
Because of the newer
construction and the direction of the wind that was drifting easterly toward
town, the west end section was attacked by the fire last. But it received a lot
of attention from the assembled fire personnel. Pictures taken during and after
the fire show that the western corner of the structure remained standing minus
the roof. Block walls stood at random around the perimeter.
By early light, the fire company volunteers and much
of the town could see that little had been spared. The brick structure at the
mill pond side in the middle was standing. It had been built at the time the first
building was erected by Jordan and Lavine as a silk-throwing operation. The
original building was an “L” shape for the main building with a boiler room
attached on the mill side. It included a boiler and a steam engine that drove a drive shaft extending
through the wall into the main area to power the overhead shafts. The shafts
and pullys were used to provide motion to the variety of equipment used in the
throwing of silk.
It also powered
a generator for electricity. This was not only used in the plant but was extended
by wires into the community. This was the first electric power in town. Interestingly,
this industry was the first in the community with electricity. A large steam
boiler provided power to an engine, which ran a drive shaft, located down the
center of the main building. A belt from the shaft returned to the engine room
and ran the first electric generator in town. This unit provided lights for the
building and electricity was also distributed to some sections of the community
by the Millville Electric Light Company from here.
This boiler room
also survived. It housed two newer large coal-fired, low-pressure steam boilers for
heating throughout the plant. A 100 HP high-pressure boiler for testing
equipment and two electric driven, open-drive, medium pressure, air compressors.
The roof had been badly damaged, and the equipment was in a variety of
conditions. None were eventually salvaged.
At the northwest
end, the two-story front of the bay stood. The roof was gone. The flooring of
the second floor was gone but a few of the files and office equipment from that
floor had fallen into the ashes below. Most of the contents of these were in
cinders or lumps of metal. Here were stored nearly all of the records of the
company. The engineering department had been housed on this floor as were the
sales and accounting departments. A small wooden shed at the pond side, where
the company watchman resided, was destroyed also.
When the
insurance adjusters were finished and the state fire marshal had left, the
remains were scavenged for at least some small bits to resurrect the company.
The petty cash box survived with some small change, (the bills were incinerated),
a complete list of all the creditors, gut no list of those that owed funds,
and little else.
The
Manufacturing Company had recently consolidated all its business offices in the
main manufacturing building. The former offices that had been shared with
sister company Girton Sales Co across the mill race had housed both companies’ phone
systems. The phone lines that had been run across the race to the plant were
now routed into the small conference room in the former office building. By
Wednesday morning the management had crammed into this room and was working the
phones that were now active there.
Several
tasks were critical. The most pressing was to find a temporary manufacturing
facility that was available, close enough for employees to travel from their
homes, and with at least some sheet metal working equipment. A board of
directors previously had served the company. One of the members of that board
was the president of a manufacturing business, Metso, in Danville. They were in the
process of changing a product line that had manufactured storage bins for
industrial waste. The press brake, shears, welders, and other requirements for
a similar process were there. This connection allow the Girton to work in that facility. A few of the employees settled in the next week.
Orders
that had been promised and the materials to produce them had all been lost. The
engineering that was critical for the fabrication of each item had burnt. But,
from memory, one small ice builder was completed as soon as the material needed
was rerouted to Danville. This raised the spirits. Former customers were ask to send any and all information. Construction drawings
began arriving from customers around the world.
Eli
Lilly, the Indiana drug company, was planning to introduce a new drug. The
production line was nearly completed but needed a large washer to do the
sanitation of the items used in the manufacture. The washer was a week away from
delivery in the old plant. Eli Lilly sent two engineers to live in the area for
weeks to help Danville add to the equipment needed to do stainless production
and to source raw materials. Other customers sprang to the task and assisted.
A
second priority became obvious almost immediately. Office space. A relationship
with the local Millville Mutual Insurance company provided a space on the second
floor of their building. It had been built for the expansion of their workforce
and was still mostly available. Phone lines were rerouted there, and the full
office staff was back at work there in days. This housed the engineering
department and management. Many of these Millville sited employees spent hours on the road between Danville and
Millville.
Now for
a permanent home. The insurance company hired a contractor to clear the site. Salvage
of equipment was minimal. This has finished before the snow that December of 1987. Bloom Penn in
Bloomsburg, a design-build firm was hired to construct a 50,00 square foot
factory on the original location. The area was raised by three feet for the
base to move it above the 100-year flood plane of the adjacent Little Fishing Creek. The new plant has a
manufacturing floor of 45,000 square feet and a two-story office. It was
equipped with several new pieces, a few that were older pieces from a storage
building that did not burn and most of the equipment that they were using at
Danville. The Danville firm was disposing of the equipment that Girton was
using, in a public sale six months after they had moved into the Danville construction.
Girton purchased the essential pieces they were using at the sale and then moved
them to Millville to the new plant when it was available.
The
floor layout was broken into four bays, every 25 feet in width. In the easternmost
bay were hung two twenty-ton traveling bridges with two five-ton hoists. The
second bay also had the same bridge arrangement but with 10-ton hoists. The
third was for lighter production and had two five-ton cranes. The fourth was
filled, in part, with the restrooms on the first floor, and over these were
plant offices. A stockroom fitted in at the south end. The south end wall had a
large drive-in door at the second bay to allow shipping of the products and
receiving large raw materials. The fourth had a dock level overhead and a
walk-in door.
To the southwest
corner of the manufacturing building, an office was located. It is a two-story
mostly open office configuration. A management office and conference room are
at the south end of the first floor. Two offices, a training room for 25, and a
customer lounge are at the south end of the second floor with the remainder
for future office expansion and record storage. In the center of the first
floor, a fireproof room was constructed to house all the important company
records as a result of lessons learned.
Construction
was completed in the early winter of 1988. Over the Christmas and New Year’s
weekends, the equipment that had accumulated in Danville was moved to the new
plant. An effort had been made to ship all the production at the Danville
location before the move, but a few items needed completion and were shipped from Danville in
January. The offices moved with a lot
less stress. Details like transferring the phone connections and changing the
mail address were easy. Moving the new press brake took more muscle and other
major pieces caused the same challenges.
The
fire destroyed all the design information and historical records of the
installed equipment base. Thus, a decision was made to build the remaining
business on the original founder’s product: cleaning equipment. The employees
had an amazing recall for most of the components used in the current items.
Customers had a variety of helpful drawings, repair part lists, specs, etc.
They shared these to build back a knowledge base. It was decided to continue
the production of the ice builders as a few employees could reconstruct most of
the design. A contract with an English firm that had a license to make this
line in England had the prints that had been provided under the license and
shared copies of most of those necessary.
The old
plant floor housed old lathes, small press brakes, jump presses and tons of
tools and dies. This had all been hauled off to the scrap dealer for salvage. They had been retained over the years because they would produce an
item or two for the manufacturer of a replacement part for an old tank filler
or washer. With the loss of the information and the equipment to make it, the
spare parts business for the previous base was gone. When they moved in the
employees found a new shear, new press brake and a variety of smaller pieces of
equipment that would be needed to increase the production to fill existing
orders and a renewed interest by customers in cleaning equipment.
