Part 1

            The stock market crash of 1929 triggered a decade-long ordeal that would be called the Great Depression.  Still, in 1930 the effects of that event were not yet fully realized in Pennsburg until a devastating fire destroyed the Perkiomen Trunk and Bag Company, and left upwards of 250 persons jobless.  This event, and the mystery that followed, present an interesting chapter in the history of the area.

Jacob Cramer, Max Sherr, and Charles Sherr (operating as Cramer & Sherr) owned plants in Philadelphia and Pennsburg that manufactured quality dress and steamer-style trunks.  Fourteen years after opening the Pennsburg plant, they incorporated under the name Perkiomen Trunk and Bag Company.

            The Perkiomen Trunk and Bag Company, with locations in Philadelphia and Pennsburg,  had provided jobs to the Upper Perkiomen Valley area for twenty-five years.  Its factory complex was located on Pottstown Avenue, between Green Alley and the railroad tracks.  The complex consisted of a boiler room, a planing mill building, a three-story 46,000 sq. ft. building, and a newer 17,500 sq. ft. one-story building.

In 1929, Pennsburg Fire Company's apparatus consisted of, left to right, 1922 Dodge Chief's car, 1928 American LaFrance Engine, 1929 Amer- ican LaFrance Ladder Truck, and a 1922 Hahn Engine.

            Fourteen years after the company was started, it was incorporated.  Local residents owned much of the preferred stock of the company. 

            The first sign that something was about to go terribly wrong for local investors and employees was a statement issued by the company in November of 1930 advising them that the semi-annual dividends due now were being postponed until after an inventory was to be taken in January of 1931.

            During busy seasons the number of employees would rise to 400.  The jobs provided by the local manufacturer helped fill a void caused by the departure of the cigar-making firms of that era.

Pennsburg Fire Chief and Russel Young were credited with carrying Bernard Sherr, Perkiomen's Vice President of Operations, who was injured when he entered the build- ing to attempt to retrieve important doc- uments.  Several firefighters also sustained non-life threatening injuries.

            Shortly after one a.m. on the morning of December 17, 1930, Alfred Smith of Pennsburg was serving as a watchman at the local telephone exchange on Dotts Street when he saw flames rising from the factory.  He immediately alerted night telephone switchboard operator Lydia Kneule who had also seen the flames.  She immediately sent out the alarm. 

            Soon after the sounding of the first alarm at the firehouse, the steam whistle at the factory was sounded by night watchman Charles Cramer.  Charles, a relative of Trunk and Bag Company President Jacob Cramer, had been an employee of the company for some time.  He was reportedly entering the office of the company, preparing to punch the watchman's clock, when he discovered the fire.  He then ran to the boiler room and sounded the alarm on the factory's steam whistle.

            Kneule was credited with heroic work in sending in the alarm for the Pennsburg volunteers and then summoning fire companies from East Greenville, Red Hill, and Green Lane.  Later upon direction from firefighters, she summoned additional fire companies from Pottstown, Boyertown and Quakertown.  Elva Rostock, the daytime switchboard operator, arrived at the exchange shortly after the first alarm was sounded and took her place at the switchboard and assisted Kneule in handling the telephones.

            When firefighters arrived, the newer one-story brick building was virtually a mass of flames.  The fire had already burned through the roof at the center of the building.  Shortly after that, fire was discovered in the adjacent three-story section.  The buildings were equipped with sprinklers that firefighters reported working when they arrived.  With the doom of both structures imminent, Pennsburg Fire Chief Edwin Benner ordered the volunteers to work on keeping the fire from spreading to nearby buildings.  
            The lumber and coal yard of Elmer B. Staudt, located directly across the Perkiomen Railroad from the trunk factory was constantly in danger.  Firefighters played two streams of water on those buildings to save them.  Although the buildings were scorched, along with several freight cars on the adjacent railroad siding, no serious damage occurred on the property.  Those protecting the Staudt property were in constant danger from the teetering walls of the burned three-story section of the factory, which threatened to fall outward towards the volunteers standing on the railroad tracks.

            Neighbors rose on that cold December morning to remove their automobiles from their garages located along Green Alley.  The garages were uncomfortably near the blazing structure.  The intense heat of the fire cracked windows and scorched paint on several homes on Dotts Street.  Embers from the inferno were carried on a chilling breeze to the lower sections of Pennsburg and Red Hill where lawns were covered with charred fragments.

            Firefighters connected to a fire hydrant on Fourth Street and worked on the Staudt property.  Another hose line was run from the dam on the Shady Nook Resort premises, through Pennsburg Square, to the scene of the fire.  Other fire trucks were connected in relays to the hydrant on South Main Street, in East Greenville.  The water from that resulting connection was used to protect the garages along the alley and the planing mill at the rear of the factory. 
            Firefighters, under the direction of Chief Benner, fought the fire during one of the coldest nights of the winter.  The thermometer registered temperatures below ten degrees during the fire.  The absence of any appreciable wind prevented a serious spread of the flames to nearby buildings which were constantly threatened while the fire consumed the one-story and three-story structures of the manufacturing complex. 

            The Ladies Auxiliary of the Pennsburg Fire Company fought the elements to serve sandwiches and coffee to the emergency workers throughout the wintry morning hours.  Their offering provided a welcome respite for the tired and cold volunteers.

            The vice president of operations for Perkiomen Trunk and Bag, Bernard Sherr, was burned on the leg and overcome by smoke when he tried to enter the building to remove valuable papers.  He collapsed outside the office and was carried to safety by Benner and Russell Young. 

            Young also suffered burns that morning.  Although several other firefighters suffered minor cuts and burns, none of the injuries reported were considered serious.

            The damage estimate was $400,000.  Only the boiler room and planing mill building could be saved by the firefighters.  Eight hours after the fire devastated his business, owner Jacob Cramer announced that the factory would be rebuilt.  It never was.  Only the remnants of the concrete foundation remain at the building location on Pottstown Avenue and Green Alley past 2004.

            However, that wasn't the end of the story.  More than three years later on March 7, 1934, Civil Works Administration (CWA) workers who were removing bricks for a nearby road project were surprised at what they found, and it was determined that the cause of fire reached all the way to Atlantic City, New Jersey.

            Part 2 of the story of this disastrous fire and its aftermath will continue next week.

The newer one-story addition, along with the original three-story factory are fully involved with flames as firefighters worked to protect surrounding businesses, homes, and garages.