Orr Block & Bureau of Motor Vehicles

The present Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles office was originally built in the International Style as the Industrial Savings and Loan in 1959, and was previously the site of Allot’s Hardware store and its predecessors for over a century. In the center of the eastern half-block sat the site of one of Alliance’s greatest tragedies—The Orr Block

February 1, 1884 was a typical Friday afternoon at Frank Orr’s hardware store with only a few customers shopping, and Frank’s daughter and grandson, who lived upstairs on the second floor, down to visit. Completed in the fall of 1883, the Orr Block was considered a fine addition to the modern buildings being added to the once again prosperous town of Alliance. Noted in the newspaper reports of the day, there were about seven or eight people shopping at the grocery store on the west side of Orr’s and a few people were working in the Miller dry goods store on the east at a minute or two before 4 o’clock. A massive explosion engulfed and collapsed the Orr Block and rocked the entire community.

Rather than the old frame construction of the 1860s that had sufficed through the 70s after the Crash of 1873, new three-story business block built with pressed bricks and utilizing the modern, large French plate glass windows were sprouting up in the business district between the station and the square, and the Orr Block had just been finished the previous fall. As with most buildings on the recently rechristened Main Street (earlier, it had been known as Alliance Street), the first floor held commercial business rooms while the second and (sometimes) third floor were residences, often a proprietor and perhaps a tenant or two. In this case, Frank Orr had moved one of his three daughters, Allie Highland, along with her husband Homer and their two-year-old son Vernon into the rooms on the second floor. The third floor was rented by Frank Evans, an employee of the Williams and Morgan hammer works, with his wife Ida and two small children, four- and two-years-old.

Hardware stores were an essential and plentiful part of every 19th century community. Gasoline was coming into popular use as an alternative to the more expensive kerosene for lighting and was one of the products along with its tin shop and hardware, offered at the Orr store. According to accounts of the day, young Vernon opened the spigot on the gasoline tank, spilling about a gallon onto the floor of the shop. Frank’s 21-year-old son Elmer, also working there, began to mop up the gasoline but the fumes reached a fire-burning stove and detonated a fearful blast.

A team of horses on the opposite side of the street, thrown down by the violent explosion, scrambled to their feet. Eyewitnesses remarked that the building appeared to be lifted up before crashing to the ground. The sound of the explosion, heard several blocks away, caused many to think there had been an earthquake. The neighboring three-story building collapsed and thin glass windows within two blocks of the explosion shattered. Property damage estimates were $50,000 and there was little insurance coverage.

Frank and Elmer Orr, along with Allie Orr Highland and her young son Vernon, all perished in the subsequent fire and building collapse. Frank Evans had just put his 4-month old baby into her crib when the explosion occurred. Their third floor apartment collapsed, trapping the family beneath the ceiling beams and bricks as the fire spread. Evans was able to pull himself out from the wreckage but could not reach his wife, Ida, or either of their children and they perished in the disaster.

Items of Note

• Frank and his wife Isabel were stalwarts of the Methodist Church in Alliance, and deeply committed to the Temperance Movement. Frank had volunteered the store for a meeting of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union that evening, but for some minor reason lost to time, it has canceled earlier that day and rescheduled for Sunday

• Two performers from the Duprez & Bendict’s Minstrels traveling show, Al Sourbeck and Charles Hayden Wattel, were walking across the street from the Orr Block in front of Smith’s jewelry store when the explosion launched them through the window of that business. Wattel was severely cut on his legs and half an ear was cut off. In 1901, Wattel contacted a friend in Alliance in search of copies of news articles from the time of the accident. He wanted to have proof because he found no one would believe his many scars had been caused by being blown through a window.

• In 1963, then-100-year-old Alliance resident Belle Rosenberg recalled that February afternoon:

“I did see the top of the Orr Building go up in the air. There was a house where the Presbyterian Church is right now, on the opposite side of the street. . . and I was visiting a friend of mine there at that home, I remember I was standing on the porch just ready to leave when I heard this explosion and looked out this direction and saw that top go.”

Unknown. "Hear From!", Alliance Review. August 22nd, 1900. Accessed May 28th, 2024. https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p16007coll36/id/104524/rec/1.

Crist, Lyle. Reminiscences of Mrs. Belle Rosenberg - Page 22, Alliance Memory. Accessed May 28th, 2024. https://www.alliancememory.org/digital/collection/voices/id/1664/rec/1.

Unknown. "Friday's Horror," Alliance Review. February 6, 1884. Microfilm from Rodman Public Library Collection.