05/25/2026
"On This Date" of May 25, 1911
Shortly after 19:00, an employee sweeping the basement in the Calvin K. Whitner's "Daylight" Department Store, 438-444 Penn street, noticed an odor of something burning. The employee notified a night watchman and together, they began to check the basement. They traced the smell to the packing and shipping department in the basement, where they found smoke coming from the doors. Upon opening the doors, a flash of fire shot out at them. Both employees ran out of the basement and up the stairway, narrowly escaping the flames that quickly engulfed the basement. When they got outside, the two men informed a passing Reading police officer, who ran to 5th and Franklin streets and sounded an alarm of fire from Box 312.
The 19:10 alarm of fire brought out the Reading Hose, Neversinks, Friendships, Liberties, the Keystone's chemical wagon and the Washington’s aerial, who was filling in for the Keystone's hook and ladder which was out of service.
Chief of the Fire Department George W. Miller arrived on the scene and found a two-story, center portion of the department store in flames. After setting up the first alarm companies, he found the flames were spreading to a newly constructed, five-story annex along Cherry street.
At 19:18, a second call for help only brought out the Juniors.
Miller ordered three hose lines to be placed in service, directing water into the basement of the Cherry street annex. While this was happening, other volunteers placed ladders against the Bamford and Kemp Drug Store, 446 Penn street, in an attempt take hose lines to the roof and focus on the burning center portion of Whitners. Another hose line was stretched through a yard in the rear of the National Union Bank.
Volunteers on the Penn street side raised ladders to several windows where smoke was pushing from. Once the windows were broken out, a strong breeze pushed the fire to the Cherry street side.
While firemen were engaged in battling the flames, employees from the Whitner store attempted to save books and records from a front, west end office. The books and records were
initially taken to the Bon-Ton Millinery store, 434-436 Penn streets, but had to move a second time when the raging inferno threatened to destroy that structure also.
Several more hand lines were placed in service along Billiard's alley, located on the east side of the store. Other hand lines were charged on the Penn street side and directed into the basement. With no interior attack in progress, the flames were driven upward threw the wooden ceiling and into the first floor. Firemen then had to redirect their streams into the main entrance doors.
Within fifteen minutes, flames consumed the basement in the five-story Cherry street annex. Fire then communicated to the first and second floors. Moments later, fire traveled up an elevator shaft and took control of the fifth floor.
Chief Miller knew his men were fighting a losing battle. At 19:55, he ran to Box 312 and manually tapped out the triple-three signal for a general alarm. This sent the Rainbows, Hampdens, Riversides and Schuylkills to the fire scene. The Unions then relocated to the Friendships and the Marions came into the Juniors.
Firemen went to the tops of surrounding buildings with hose lines, attempting to drown the red devil. Roofs of neighboring businesses lit off from the intense heat. The upper, rear floors of the Bon-Ton caught fire, but firemen soon had that fire under control.
At the height of the blaze, burning embers were carried as far south as 4th and Spruce streets, where a shed and some wood at the Merritt Lumber Yard caught fire. When the Merritt fire was discovered, a still alarm was telephoned to the city police. They in turn, called the Friendship’s engine house to have the Unions respond. When the Unions arrived on the scene, they found neighbors and employees had organized a bucket brigade and put the fire out.
A stable in the rear of 239 South 3rd street was also ignited by the shower of burning debris. This fire was doused by a bucket brigade formed by neighbors.
The Whitner fire had burned itself out sometime around 21:30. One by one, Chief Miller released the many of the second and third alarm companies. By 22:00, only the first alarm apparatus remained on the scene. They continued to douse hot spots throughout the night.
At about 23:00, Chief Miller noted the Cherry street walls were weakening. He quickly rounded up the volunteers and had the apparatus moved from the area. Metropolitan Electric was notified to shut down the power to the lines along Cherry street. Just before midnight, the south portion of the five-story brick wall came down with a crash. This was followed by a structural failure of the east wall. When the dust had cleared, the twenty-four inch steel beams were glowing red. Billiard’s alley became an impassible sea of bricks and debris.
The only portion of the Cherry street annex, which was built in the Spring of 1910, that remained was the southwest portion. This was torn down days later.
Although Chief Miller attempted to clear the immediate area of volunteers and apparatus, three men were injured when the walls came down. John Kreider suffered a head laceration, and William Seibert bruised his knee. The more serious of the three injuries was sustained by Edwin Schmehl, 24, who received a deep head laceration from the falling bricks. All three men were members of the Reading Hose.
All of the merchandise inside the Whitner Daylight store was destroyed. The total loss was shown to be $276,064.
Others buildings in the area that were damaged were: the rear of Dr. J. Ellis Kurtz’s home, 20 South 5th street, $3,539.11, most of which was damaged by the collapsing annex wall along Billiard’s alley; Bamford and Kemp's Drug store, 446 Penn street; and the Bon-Ton Millinery Store, 434-436 Penn street.
The Fashion Store, 400 block of Penn street, also suffered a fire loss. This resulted when sparks from the Liberty’s steamer ignited their awning. The fire was easily controlled as it quickly flashed into fire, then fell away from the structure.
Owners of the United States Hotel, 427-429 Penn streets, shut down their stable in the rear of the building to the general public when the alarm of fire came in. Employees then rounded up all the fire company horses and took them in. The horses were given food and water, all at the Hotel's expense, while their owners were battling the blaze.
Chief of Police Levan ordered five mounted police officers to patrol the area when the second alarm was sounded. Soon, the entire shift of policemen were detailed to the streets around the burning department store to control the thousands of people that proceeded to the fire scene.
At one point, it was estimated that nearly twenty-thousand citizens were lined up along Penn Square to watch the blaze. Those who arrived early enough got some of the best seats in the house as they climbed to the top of the Colonial Trust building, located on the northwest corner of 5th and Penn streets. Every window from the second floor up, was crowded with people. Youngsters climbed to the top of telegraph and electric poles to watch. Privately owned cars and buggies double parked along streets from 4th to 5th and Washington to Franklin. Others rode their horses bare back to the scene. Those who took into consideration the traffic cluster that was known to happen around fire scenes hiked to the top of Mt. Penn mountain and climbed to the top of the Mt. Penn tower and Summit Hotel to watch.
One notable person who was brought to the scene by his mother was a nine-year-old that lived at 530 Oley street. The youngster heard and counted the initial tapping of Box 312 on three different Gamewell bells, the Rainbow’s, the Schuylkill’s and St. Thomas’ Reform Church at 11th and Windsor. After counting the bells, he ran inside and looked up the location on a piece of paper that appeared in the Reading newspaper. When the triple-three tapping of the general alarm came through, the child’s persistence was enough to get his mother to walk him into the fire. His name was Paul Howard Mogel.
Mogel, the father of the city’s twelfth fire chief Russell P., became a volunteer firemen for the Riverside Fire Company in 1922, at the age of 20. He then became an extra driver for the Riversides in 1926, and a paid driver in 1927. Paul Mogel continued to be a paid driver for his home company until his retirement on December 17, 1967.
His memories of this fire were remarkable as he recalled what he saw during an interview in February 1999, at the age of 96. Paul remembered standing with his mother on the northeast corner of 5th and Penn streets near Stichter’s Hardware, watching both the flames burning through the roof in the back portion of the Whitner building, and also mesmerized by the Liberty’s 1881 horse-drawn, second-class Silsby steamer, as its black smoke and ashes pushed from the boiler stack.
Paul then watched as a steamer hooked up to a hydrant in front of the Christ Episcopal Church, located on the northwest corner of 5th and Court streets. As the men were stoking the steamer’s fire box, he recalled a horse-drawn wagon dropping hose from the steamer to the fire scene.
Later in life, Paul learned from the old-timers sitting around the Riverside’s engine house that the steamer and hose wagon belonged to the Riverside’s, his home company.
Throughout Paul’s career as a paid driver, he carried a box on the apparatus that contained a 35mm camera and a movie camera. For more than forty years, he ran fire calls and not once did he ever take a photo or movie of a fire he attended.
His last fire he lent a helping hand at was on February 20, 1978, when flames destroyed the vacant Outer Station passenger depot. Once Paul helped drag hose from the Riverside’s truck to the fire scene, he found his heart racing. The 75-year-old then knew that his days of fighting fires were over.
Calvin K. Whitner was born and raised in Oley. He moved to Reading in 1868, taking a job with the Kline, Eppihimer and Company's Dry Good Store, 522 Penn street. He remained there until he went into business for himself. His first store, a 20 by 90 foot show room at 432 Penn Street, opened on Saturday, April 14, 1877. By the end of grand-opening day, he and his six employees recorded $159 in sales. At the end of 1877, his sales came to almost $37,000.
Soon after, he engaged in home deliveries, first by wheelbarrow manned by the store’s first driver, Wilson E.F. Miller. By 1890, they began using horse and wagon.
In 1883, Mr. Whitner moved to 442-444 Penn, which was a much larger 30 by 130 foot store with four-thousand square feet of room. Whitner decided that, with all the room he now had, to divide his trade into ten smaller departments. By 1891, the store expanded all the way to Cherry Street. Six years later, Whitner expanded again by taking possession of 438 and 440 Penn Street. One more year passed and by now, the store encompassed 60,000 square feet throughout four-stories along Penn Street and five-stories on Cherry Street.
His son, Harry K., became a part owner in 1889, but unfortunately, he died two years later before the store had taken off.
On March 19, 1900, the C. K. Whitner and Company’s Daylight Department Store became the very first place in the City of Reading to exhibit a new form of media, moving pictures. Groups of nearly eight-hundred people per show, crowded into the store to watched the “Passion Play,” a silent movie based on Christ. It was shown three times a day for two weeks straight.
One-hundred and twenty-one days after the destructive fire, the store was rebuilt and open for business, this time at 90,000 square feet of room.
