LESURE LUMBER COMPANY

LESURE LUMBER COMPANY. Organized in 1889 as the Charley Clark Mill, the 1890-91 Dubuque City Directory listed it as the Lesure Lumber Company and located it ayt he foot of 7th Street. The company maintained lumberyards containing seven million feet of lumber and a physical plant covering fifteen acres.

On June 9, 1894 fire destroyed the company. The largest fire in the history of the city, flames spread as fire companies from Dubuque, East Dubuque, and Galena made every effort to contain the blaze. Requests for reinforcements to arrive by train went to Cedar Rapids, La Crosse, Clinton, and Freeport. (1)

The fire blackened the SHOT TOWER, leveled the KNAPP, STOUT AND COMPANY lumber yards, destroyed two saw mills, a pickling factory, stables, coal yards, railroad out-buildings, another small lumber company and a paper mill. Sixty million board feet of lumber fed the flames that reached from the river nearly to the DUBUQUE COUNTY COURTHOUSE and from 5th Street to 14th. The cost was estimated at half a million dollars. The company rebuilt. (2)

The firm was sold to a group of local investors on March 28, 1895. The new company, known as the Rumpf-Frudden Lumber Company, maintained mills in Stillwater, Minnesota, and annually produced an estimated twenty million feet of lumber.

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Soure:

1. McCormick, John. "How Big Was the 1894 Fire? It Was So Big That..." Telegraph Herald, Nov. 14, 1979, p. 5. Online: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nOhFAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Uv4MAAAAIBAJ&pg=6738,2018011&dq=standard+lumber+company+dubuque&hl=en

2. Ibid.