Modesto City Museum Burned Out

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Modesto City Museum Burned Out

THE BUILDING HOUSING THE CITY OF MODESTO, CALIFORNIA, collection of historic artifacts was destroyed Sunday morning in a fire. The 1920’s-era schoolhouse was closed in 1953 and converted into a community center.

Modesto Bee photos

The city had to close the building to the public in 2003 because it was unsafe. But it was still used by the police and fire departments for training and, for some odd reason, to store its collection of priceless artifacts.

Around 1:20 am Sunday the FD received a fire call for the building and found heavy smoke and flames showing from the upper floor. After making an attempt to knock it down from the inside on a quick attack, they had to retreat outside because of the deteriorated condition of the building. It is a total loss.

“I am in shock,” said Wayne A. Mathes, the cultural services manager, who is in charge of the McHenry mansion and museum and the city’s Landmark Preservation Commission. “There were things that were just totally irreplaceable. It’s all gone. There is just nothing left.”

The Modesto Bee further reports: The building had suffered numerous intrusions from transients and vandals, officials said. The city had boarded up the upper windows and put metal mesh over the windows downstairs for security.

Read the full story in the Modesto Bee HERE.
Also a short VIDEO.

Comment on the whole story at Firegeezer.com:

Firegeezer asks: If those artifacts were valuable and irreplacable, why were they left in an abandoned and unprotected building with a known vagrancy problem? Wasn’t there anybody in Modesto with the foresight to prevent this from happening?

No comments:

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007