BARTLETT VISITED BY SECOND BLAZE

EARLY MORNING FIRE CAUSES DAMAGE ESTIMATED AT MORE THAN $15,000

Fire at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday almost wiped out the business section of Bartlett, Tenn., on the Louisville & Nashville railroad, destroying two stores and a warehouse and burning the postoffice. The total loss is estimated at more than $15,000. The property and stock is partially covered by insurance.

The big general store of Ernest J. Hood, with its stock, was destroyed, as was also the grocery and meat store of H.J. McKelvey, adjoining it. The postoffice as burned, but Mrs. Charles Sedinger, postmistress, saved the stamps, money orders and other things of value.

All the telephone wires are down and Bartlett was cut off entirely from the telephone service Wednesday morning.

The gin owned by Mrs. Dave Gotten and operated by Appling Brothers, and the brick store owned by Mrs. Sedinger and her sisters, were saved by a change in the wind and by the heroic work of citizens, including women.

Several citizens said they heard a muffled explosion about midnight as though a safe had been blown. Mayor Charles Sedinger believes the fire was of incendiary origin.

This is the second large fire in Bartlett in little more than a year. The general store of T.J. Dunagan and the postoffice were burned last year, following a series of robberies in the town.

Note: Inscribed with a date of Dec. 3, 1918.