Typed as spelled and
written - Lena Stone Criswell

THE DAILY DEMOCRAT
Thirty-First Year - Number 135
Marlin, Texas, Wednesday, October 7, 1931

COUPLE HAVE NARROW
ESCAPE FROM FLAMES

Awakened by Smoke and Cut Off
From Stairway, Emerge
Through Window.

Awakened by stifling smoke and finding themselves cut off by fire from the stairway, Mr. and Mrs. Pat Abate had a narrow escape from flames in the building occupied by his store at the corner of Falls and Bridge
streets early today.

Called out at 2:50 a.m., Marlin firemen reached the scene about the time Mr. and Mrs. Abate made their exit from their living quarters on the second floor of the building.

"I was awakened first by the smoke," Mrs. Abate said.  "I aroused Pat and when we found we were cut off from the stairway in the rear of the building, I tore a screen off a front window."

Emerge on Awning.

Through this opening, they emerged and dropped down to the awning in front of the building.  Walking across this, they chose a railroad traffic signal pole as the best road to safety and slid down it to the street.

Aroused by the cries of Mrs. Abate, R. C. Bradbury, at the Bluebonnet
hotel just across Falls street, turned in the fire alarm from the box at the corner of Ward and Live Oak streets, merging with Falls and Bridge, respectively, at this intersection.

Firemen arrived promptly and soon had the blaze under control.  Knowing that Mr. and Mrs. Abate had their living quarters upstairs and unaware that they had escaped as the firemen were arriving, Chief Billingsley immediately sent a couple of men to a second story window of the bed room to arouse them.  However, the occupants had already made their way out.

Fire Started Upstairs.

The fire started on the second floor of the building, which is owned by Joe Abate of Eloise, father of Pat Abate, and the flames were snuffed out before they could eat through the ceiling or down the stairway to the first floor, the latter being undamaged except for water and not much
of that was required to curb the cause.

In addition to the living quarters in the front part of the second floor
the rear part of the upstairs section was used as a storeroom and here it was that the blaze apparently originated from an undetermined cause.

In fact, the flames (missing) only one bed room, not ge(tting) (in)to the two rooms where mos(t) (missing) the furnishings were kept, although smoke reached the latter.

This was not the first time this building, one of the oldest landmarks in Marlin and one of the first two brick buildings erected here, had been seared by fire.  The second floor was used for years by the Masonic lodge and not so many years ago it was the scene of a disastrous fire, being occupied by a furniture store at that time.

Insurance was carried in the sum of $4000 on the building and $1000 on stock and fixtures.

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Permission granted to Theresa Carhart and her volunteers for printing by
The Democrat, Marlin, Falls County, Texas.