GRANDSTAND at fairgrounds here had a blazing start before firemen arrived. This photo by police department was taken at 2:20 a.m. and shows flames all along the west side. Ticket booth is in foreground.

Arson is “strongly”‘ suspected in the fire which demolished the grandstand at the Brown County fairgrounds here early today, according to New Ulm Fire Chief L.E. Lowinske.

Lowinske said the entire grandstand structure was ablaze in less than three minutes which was not normal. It should have spread more slowly.

“Some inflammables must have been used for the flames to spread so fast,” Lowinske said.

No one was injured in the blaze.

The fire started in the northeast corner of the grandstand, across from the food stand. A neighbor at 1400 N. State saw the flames and called police at 2:03 a.m.

BY THE TIME dawn broke this morning, this was all that was left of the grandstands at the Brown County fairgrounds. Fire was believed to have started about 2 a.m. (Photo by Ron Grieser)

When police got near the fire they could see an orange glow. No one was in the area. They arrived at the fairgrounds and the middle section of the north corner of the grandstand was burning. A Brown County Sheriff’s deputy and a policeman cut a link in the chain of the padlocked State Street gate by the grandstand so fire trucks could get through. This took them about two minutes.

When they turned around the entire grandstand, the ticket office and Dannheim’s ice cream stand were engulfed in flames. The south end of the food stand north of the grandstand was also starting to burn.

Lowinske said when firemen arrived the whole grandstand structure “was completely involved from one end to another, which don’t make sense. It shouldn’t have spread all at once like that. We strongly suspect arson.”

The state fire marshal has been notified of the suspected arson.

Lowinske said the people who reported the first thought at first it was an electrical wiring fire but all the wires around the grandstand have been disconnected since county fair time, so an electrical fire has been ruled out as a cause.

All three first-line fire trucks plus the standby pumper were out at the fire and three hydrants were used.

“We just tried to control it,” Lowinske said. “It was out of hand and there were no exposures (buildings threatened) except the food stand.”

Firemen watered down the food stand and tried to cool off the burning timbers. The grandstand, ticket office and ice cream stand were all destroyed.

The grandstand is about 200 x 30 feet in size. The north half was left standing, blackened timbers running from the upper rear down toward the field but no seats left on top of them. The tin roof still balanced on top of the charred frame, the northwest and southwest portions flapping down the steel posts in front were the only things still standing relatively undamaged.

THE SOUTH HALF of the grandstand collapsed about 3 a.m., Lowinske said, slowly leaning to the west farther and farther until it folded over like a house of cards. The tin roof was thrown onto the field. The outer timbers, looking like burned corn cobs, had keeled over from their pinioned attachments to cement blocks and lay flat atop the debris. Smoke still drifted over the scene this morning.

Lowinske said one explanation for the south half collapsing while the north section didn’t was that the breeze from the north blew the heat into the south section raising the fire intensity there.

He said the debris would continue to smolder for some time but should pose no danger, if it flares up firemen will go back out, he said.

Lowinske said the gate north of the cattle barn is always open so any person bent on arson could get in that way.

Firemen were on the scene until about 5a.m. and Lowinske was back out this morning looking over the devastation.

Flood lights lay fallen on the ground looking like huge white hardhats along the south edge of the grandstand. An air conditioner was a mass of twisted metal.

Electrical and phone wires were stretched lying along the ground. The announcing stand out in the field in front of the grandstand had one small area scorched.

Lowinske and another fireman this morning were examining the area of the grandstand where the fire is believed to have started. Fairground workmen said tools and a gallon of latex paint had been kept in a small room there. A blackened folding chair was still sitting amid the debris.

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THE GRANDSTAND was rebuilt along permanent lines in 1921, Journal files show. An addition was erected some years later and, following the storm of 1937, the grandstand was rebuilt and extended.

Waldemar Huevelmann, fair board president, said the grandstand was covered by insurance, which will pay about $30,000. He said he had “no idea” of the total worth of the structure.

Cal Backer, board member in charge of grandstand supervision, said there was no question it would be rebuilt and said it probably would be a cement structure this time. Huevelmann said the board was to meet at 4 p.m. today to view the damage and discuss rebuilding.

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THREE YEARS AGO, Sept. 30, 1971, three juvenile boys set fire to the grand-stand in the middle of the day. The fire was reported by a citizen and did not do serious damage. The boys, age about 9, were caught. They had also stolen some candy from the Izaak Walton League cabin at the same time they set the fire and their families were to make restitution. The fire today was thus the second apparent arson attempt at the grandstand in three years.

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A MAN LIVING across the street from the fairgrounds got up shortly after 2 a.m.

“It was so light outside I figured it was time to get up,” he said.

New Ulm Daily Journal

Oct. 17, 1974