Big Fire in Galesburg

It's bright and sunny here in the 'burg. We lost one of our downtown historical building to fire this week. The tragedy began early Monday morning about 1:30 a.m. I heard the breaking news on the radio about 3:30 a.m. The building was the O.T. Johnson department store. It originated about 1850 when Galesburg had only dirt roads and plank boardwalks. The first store was a two-story narrow building. The building I was familiar with was built around 1900 with add-ons throughout the years. When I was a kid, my girldfriend, Diana Scott, worked in the restaurant at O.T.'s. Occasionally, I would meet her downtown when she took her break. We thought we were such "big shots" going out to lunch like the grownups!

Shopping was fantastic at O.T. Johnson's. They had a special section in the store for teens called "The Spot". They carried a lot of trendy items for the 1970's like leather fringe shoulder bags (yep, I had one) and big hoop earrings.

O.T.'s closed in the late 70's after the mall opened. It seemed the downtown area just "died". Many business moved to the mall or just shuttered their doors.

The firemen are still on the job extingushing hot spots and trying to figure out how this fire started. Was it arson? Prior to the fire, an antique store was located in the building. There was a fire in their adjacent warehouse a week ago. Nearly gutted the place. Did the firemen actually put out the fire or did some of it sit and smolder for nearly a week? Maybe we'll never know.