Rising from the Ashes in Centralia
Despite losing his building in a recent fire, Richard T. Dabney is already planning a larger, more modern brick block.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Richard T. Dabney never allows the grass to grow under his feet, and fortune’s fickle capers do not crush his hustling propensities. Notwithstanding that his Centralia building was destroyed by the recent fire, he bobs up serenely again with the determination to build a larger and better building in that thriving city. He owns the lot on the corner of Main Street and Tower Avenue, and together with W.T. Binkley and others, will build a magnificent brick business block with a frontage of 250 feet on Main Street and 100 feet on Tower Avenue.
“Richard T. Dabney never allows the grass to grow under his feet.”
Centralia’s history of fires was a common reality for boomtowns of the era; the 'brick block' was the standard answer for a city trying to project permanence after a catastrophe.
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