The disasters · the Studebaker fires of 1872, 1874 and 1885

1872 – 1885

Fire was the nineteenth-century factory's standing enemy, and it came for the city's largest works three times: In June 1872 fire swept the Studebaker wagon works with a loss of nearly $100,000 — the Smithsonian's company chronology says the fire "almost destroys the company." The works were rebuilt grander, and on 24 August 1874 the second fire came: it destroyed two-thirds of the factory and a large portion of its contents, at a loss of about $350,000, not far from one third of it covered by insurance. The county's 1875 illustrated atlas sums the two fires together: losses "aggregating almost $450,000, only about one-third of which was covered by insurance" — in a city whose whole annual product was a small multiple of that sum. The recovery became part of the company's legend on the same page: the fire was hardly quenched before rebuilding began, and in four months the brothers had not only nearly completed their immense new structure but had made over 2,500 vehicles in the interval. A third large fire struck the factory in 1885, and the works were rebuilt again. The three fires are the founding entries in this city's disaster roster for a reason the record makes plain: for forty years South Bend's economy was a wooden wagon works, and a wagon works is a lumber yard with a roof — the city's prosperity burned, repeatedly, in its own raw material.

Sources:

1. Albert Russel Erskine, History of the Studebaker Corporation (1918) — the June 1872 fire and its ~$100,000 loss, and the fire of 24 August 1874 at ~$350,000 with its insurance share.
2. An Illustrated Historical Atlas of St. Joseph County, Indiana (Higgins, Belden & Co., 1875) — the combined 1872–1874 loss of almost $450,000, one-third insured, and the four-month rebuilding with 2,500 vehicles made.
3. Smithsonian Institution, "From Horses to Horsepower: Studebaker Helped Move a Nation," mileposts — June 1872 ("a fire almost destroys the company"), 24 August 1874 ("a second huge fire destroys two-thirds of the factory"), and the further big fire of 1885.