The Superior Express -

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the fire which destroyed the original Elks Lodge buildings in Superior along with an addition that saw its first use on New Year’s Eve.

We may not have space this week to reprint The Express story and pictures which reported on the fire but we are getting the material ready for republication.

While preparing the From the Files report for this week, we recalled that super cold night and the biggest fire I’ve had an opportunity to cover in my 50 years with The Express.

The official U.S. Weather Bureau thermometer reported it was 11 below zero that night. I thought it colder.

It was a busy Saturday night for the Elks Club. There was a dance in the new addition used for the first time on New Year’s eve. The private dining room was the site of a Nuckolls County Livestock Feeder’s Banquet. The Holdrege High School basketball team was eating supper in the dining room. It was estimated at least 200, perhaps as many as 250 people were in the four buildings which had been joined together to form the club and lodge rooms.

I had been there just a few minutes before the fire was discovered. I had been invited to join the feeders for the crowning of the 1980 Nuckolls County Feeders’ Queen.

My picture of the queen, Pat Renz, was probably the last photo taken at the old club. The club had been a popular place for meetings but the meeting room with its dark paneling and reflective ceiling grid was always a challenging place to take pictures in. I had a lot of practice for many special events were held there but I never mastered the environment. Usually I was disappointed by the quality of my pictures.

Since my home is only about three blocks from the club site and I probably would have had to park a block or more away on a busy Saturday night in downtown Superior, I decided to walk from home to the Elks.

I dressed warmly, walked to The Express and left the outer layers there. Not wanting to deal with heavy wraps at the Elks Club, I dashed to the club wearing as a jacket only a wool sport coat.

After taking the picture, I visited with friends in the dining room and returned to The Express where I bundled up and continued my sub-zero walk. I walked west a couple more blocks to make sure the heaters were running and the pipes at the car wash Dad and I built on West Third in 1970 had not frozen. After checking out the car wash and finding it okay, I walked home, removed the outer layers and sat down at my desk to make my weekly telephone call to my parents. They had fled Superior for the warmer climate of southern Texas. In those days, the lowest long distance telephone rates came after 11 p.m., so that is when we scheduled our calls.

We had just started talking when the call came in requesting the assistance of a couple of firemen to check out a possible fire at the Elks Club. I told my father if there was any town left I would call him back in the morning. I put on my warmest clothes and headed back downtown.

I got my camera and went to the Elks. It was obvious the building was on fire as by that time as smoke was pouring from the structure.

Though I stayed at the fire most of the night, I’m not proud of my pictures. It was so cold I could only snap a picture or two and then I had to go inside and let the camera equipment warm up.

I suspect more than 100 firemen joined in the fight. Eight fire departments answered the call for assistance. The Superior department, alone, supplied 44 firemen. Several former firemen came out of retirement to assist. When an awning fell on a dozen firemen, spectatorsn who had gathered to watchn rushed in to help lift the awning off the fire fighters.

The Elks fire was probably the last big one for Superior’s 1948 American LaFrance fire truck purchased after the Bossemeyer Brothers’ Elevator fire. That fire is probably the biggest in Superior’s history. It destroyed a complex of buildings more than a block long. Embers from that Second Street fire drifted as far north as Fifteenth Street.

The LaFrance pumper with it’s 12-cylinder motor designed for the Auburn automobile company, didn’t appear to be stressed by the fire. It was located just east of the newspaper office and pumped water all night. As the old truck didn’t have a radio and the men operating it did not have a view of the fire, they asked if I could place the newspaper’s scanner where they could keep track of the progress. I tried but didn’t have much success.

With the below zero temperatures, the fire zone became a contrast of blazing hot spots and ice sculptures.

Firemen were soon covered with ice. What is now Dave’s Place was opened as a warm-up retreat. The ice encrusted firemen had to be helped out of their coats. The frozen coats were so stiff they would stand up.

The original club was located in what had once been the Bon-Ton Hotel and Cafe. It was among the many short term business ventures my grandfather was involved with. But his short time association with the Bon-Ton was to have a long lasting influence on the Superior business community for he convinced Dorothy Seever to move to Superior from Lebanon and operate the cafe. And thus began her long association with the Superior food business. Before her retirement, she was to operate cafes in several locations and a ladies ready-to-wear store. Her husband operated a GMC truck and Pontiac car dealership where Lost Creek Welding is now located.

The Bon-Ton was once a popular eating place. It I remember a day long after grandfather has sold his interest in the businss. With my parents I stood in line outside the building while waiting for a table. The old cafe housed the Elks bar and dining room. A building to the south, which I remember as a shoe repair shop, housed the private dining room where the Feeders were meeting. Once the fire got upstairs into the maze of rooms which had been part of the hotel, it became a real challenge to fight. The Elks adjoined the Union Hotel on the south and the Ace Hardware store on the north. Firemen worked to keep the fire from spreading to those structures.

Soon after the fire. the Elks announced plans to relocate in the former Union Hotel. The hotel had also been a popular eating establishment with a noon buffet but the state licensing agencies denied the request.

After the original lots were cleared, the Elks constructed a new building but it lacked the ambiance of the old structure. The new structure now houses an interesting cowboy museum.

The Elks Lodge continues to be active but no longer operates a club.