$26,000 Fire at Pittsburgh Foundry
Lewis and Holitess Foundry, Oldest in the City, Destroyed
A fast-moving fire destroyed the city's oldest foundry and spread to nearby tenements, killing several horses and briefly threatening the gas works — an ordinary industrial disaster of the kind that filled Gilded Age wire columns and is otherwise unrecorded.
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The Cairo Bulletin · July 13, 1873 · Page 1
1 min readPITTSBURGH, July 12.
The Lewis and Holitess foundry, the oldest one in the city, burned this p.m. about 4 o'clock. Loss from $26,000 to $50,000. Insurance $10,000. The fire caught in the pattern-room and before it was checked, had communicated to a number of tenement houses on the opposite side of Second avenue, destroying them, also five horses. The Pittsburgh gas works were at one time in great danger, but were saved. Total loss about $36,000.
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