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1917
The immigrant city's social center burned in a night, and the morning paper could not close the story: In the night of 18–19 August 1917, Magyar Hall on Chapin Street — the Hungarian societies' hall, built in 1910, with its theater, dance floor, club rooms, store and saloon — was destroyed by fire. The South Bend News-Times of 19 August put the loss at $15,000 and reported the fire's human question in its headline: "Magyar Hall Burns; Fear Man Is Lost." Mike Muszar, an officer of one of the societies, was reported missing; the search of the ruins failed to give a clue, and at the paper's late hour he was still missing — the record this section prints ends there, with the man unaccounted for in the paper of record, and this section does not close what the source leaves open. The fire was fought for nearly an hour and a half before it was controlled; it had gained great headway before the firemen arrived, apparently starting at the rear of the second floor, under or upon the stage that occupied the hall's entire rear, and the theory advanced was defective wiring at the switchboard. The hall was the west side's Hungarian South Bend in one building — theater scenery, curtains, club rooms and all — and its burning is the disaster roster's entry for the immigrant decades: a community's whole social plant, gone between a Saturday night and a Sunday paper.
Sources:
- South Bend News-Times, 19 August 1917 (Hoosier State Chronicles) — the destruction of Magyar Hall, the $15,000 loss, the missing Mike Muszar and the fruitless search of the ruins as reported that day, the fire's seat at the stage and the defective-wiring theory.