An 1989 fire was a close call for two firemen
In mid-day of June 20, 1989, a fire occurred in downtown Laramie. It quickly spread from 317 S. 2nd St. to adjacent buildings at 315 and 319 S. 2nd St.
Over 40 years earlier, a fire at the W.H. Holliday department store consumed the entire 400 block from S. 3rd to 2nd St., plus buildings along both 2nd and Garfield Streets. A total of 18 businesses were lost. Fears of something similar resurfaced as spectators gathered to watch the firemen on a summer day in 1989, one that was very different from the extremely windy, cold night of April 13, 1948 when the Holliday fire started.
Tragedy Averted
The 1989 fire almost had a tragic outcome. It was a close call for two Laramie firemen, Larry Bobango and Stan Gibson, who were assigned to ambulance duty that day. As Gibson recalls, “We were sent inside the building at 319 S. 2nd St. to look for people. When we entered, the fire was confined next door. We went up the interior staircase and found no one. But when we tried to go back down, the staircase was on fire.”
Windows had been boarded up in that storage building; but Bobango and Gibson carried with them tools to pry loose the plywood on one of the front second story windows. Gibson recalls, “We broke the window glass and scrambled down the ladders put up for us. Our big ladder truck had just been sent to Colorado for annual servicing, so it was the shorter side ladders carried on the fire trucks that the team used to save us.”
Laramie Fire Chief Dan Johnson had photos of the 1989 fire hanging in his office in Fire Station #1 when retired fireman Stan Gibson and I visited. As we were studying the photos, fireman Johnathan Pisciotti joined us and studied one showing the crowd watching the firemen at work. “See that little kid there,” said Pisciotti, pointing to one of the children in front. “That’s me in 1989.” That one and all the other photos of this fire are permanently on display at Fire Station #3 in West Laramie.
Consequences
The three buildings lost had all been acquired at various times by experienced furniture dealers Carter and Kim Ball. In 1979 they were listed in the Laramie City Directory as owners of Best Rest Waterbeds at 506 S. 21st St. in Laramie, with a branch store in Casper. In the 1983 City Directory, the name had changed to Harrison Country Woods, still listed as a watered store, but at 1800 Harrison St. in West Laramie. On May 10, 1984, now called “Country Woods,” they began advertising in the Laramie Boomerang at 212 Ivinson Ave. Shortly after that, they acquired the Jensen Building at 313 S. 2nd and moved Country Woods there. By 1989 they owned four buildings in a row on S. 2nd, numbers 313 to 319. (Even building numbers are on the west side of Laramie’s north/south streets.)
The Balls were a well-respected couple. Kim Kanaly Ball (1952-2011), daughter of Jack and Maisie Kanaly, had grown up in Laramie. She was 20 when she and Carter L. Ball were married at St. Alban’s Chapel in the Snowy Range. Their showrooms were at 313 and 315 S. 2nd, plus their double lot warehouse building at 317 to 319 S. 2nd. That address had been Laramie Basin Hardware but it closed there in 1986. It had not been opened to the public for the previous three years because it was only used for storage.
Other Laramie businesses suffered devastating losses due to the Country Woods fire. Although Kathy and Floyd Schaneman did not lose structures, their businesses suffered major smoke damage at 311 S. 2nd where they operated a gift shop called Bits and Pieces. The other was at 309 S. 2nd, Buttons n’ Bows, a children’s clothing store in a building they rented (now Pine Beach Screen Printing). Both buildings were saved, but were inundated with smoke, rendering their merchandise nearly unsalvageable.
The Schanemans have moved from Laramie; Kathy was contacted by phone in May, 2025. She reports that the insurance adjuster wanted to have all the merchandise sprayed with a chemical that would remove the smoke odor and make the merchandise salvageable. But Kathy thought, “In 10 years new research might show that the chemical was harmful. I didn’t want the responsibility of selling damaged merchandise that might make a child sick. So I discarded all of it. It was heartbreaking, and within two years we had to close both businesses that my husband and I had started from scratch.”
“I still get sick thinking about all we lost because of that fire,” says Kathy. “People don’t want to buy gifts that might have survived a fire, and they don’t understand that clothing is seasonal. Buyers want summer clothes in the summer but when we tried to restock, the manufacturers were selling winter clothing. We lost customers; it was a big tragedy for us and for Laramie.”
Lois Chickering, who operated Chickering Bookstore at 307 S. 2nd reports that her building did not sustain smoke or other damage. However, Schaneman says that water soaking into the ground caused seepage and floor damage in the basement of the Bits and Pieces building that she and her husband owned.
Mysterious Cause
By evening of July 20, 1989 the fire was extinguished. Investigators quickly determined where it started, in the basement of 317 S. 2nd, the Balls’ furniture warehouse.
Vague rumors began circulating that arson should be suspected because the Balls, in 1984, had submitted a fire insurance claim for a $40,000 estimated loss at their 1800 Harrison store in West Laramie; they lived in an apartment above. The Boomerang for April 12, 1984, has a photo of the apparently intact building published the day after the fire. The caption says it only damaged the upstairs residence, and “children playing with matches” was blamed. The paper reported that the fire did not spread downstairs, which had been the Balls’ furniture store. They probably received reimbursement for that insurance claim, no prosecution report was found.
Likely the Balls had already begun moving their stock to their new location at 212 Ivinson Ave. Furniture ads for that address began appearing just one month after the West Laramie fire.
Jon L. Johnson of Laramie knew the Balls and had heard the arson rumors, as had most other locals interviewed for this article. Johnson says, “They were great folks, we stayed in touch and after they left, they opened another store in Texas.” A 2022 obituary accessed on line through Jenkins Funerals says that Kim Kanaly Ball “…Had a career of retail store development starting with Kim’s Kountry Korner, Best Rest Inc. and ending her retail career with Country Woods.” She was survived by Carter and two of their four children, she succumbed to cancer in Texas.
After the Fire
The three buildings that were destroyed in the fire were total losses but firemen saved the Jensen Building and all the buildings north of it. Records at the Albany County Assessor’s office show that the debris was hauled away in December, 1989. Only the basements of the three stores remained for over 12 years, behind a chain link fence. A report of the fire cause has not yet been found.
Around 2002, Jon L. Johnson purchased the historic Jensen Building. He had not seen the fire but knew that the unscathed Jensen Building was about 100 years old and was attracted to the fact that it had stayed with the Jensen family from the time it was built until 1983 when Jensen’s of Laramie closed. Johnson was told that the three vacant lots to the south were part of the package for this sale. Then the giant hole for the three lots was filled in. Johnson recalls watching it being done, with loads of dirt that were compacted first with water and then with heavy machinery.
Johnson used the northernmost of the three empty lots that he now owned as access to the second-floor rental offices in the Jensen Building. He relocated his Edward Jones Co. franchise from Lyons Street to the first floor. Later he moved his office to another historic building on S. 5th Street. Now the Jensen Building is owned by Kyle and Baily Koster, who operate Range Leather in it and in 311 S. 2nd. The Kosters have also built on the former empty lot at 315 S. 2nd, that is now the address of their Range Coffee Café and Roastery.
The other two empty lots (at 317 and 319 S. 2nd) were donated by Johnson in 2003 to what is now known as the Louisa Swain Foundation. The newly formed non-profit raised funds to construct the Wyoming Women’s History House which was dedicated in 2005. It uses the address 317 S. 2nd, though it has a two-lot footprint.
Historic businesses
Before the fire, those two lots had been Laramie Basin Hardware retail store from at least 1951, using the address of 319 S. 2nd. Ads hail it as “Laramie’s most interesting store” with sawdust-covered wood floors and revolving open nail bins where customers could bag up however many nails they needed. The hardware store moved briefly around 1986, but soon closed and by 1987 the Balls owned their former building on 2nd St.
Earlier, the two lots were sometimes separate two-story buildings, each with different retail businesses; the second stories were often rental apartments. Usually only 319 is listed in city directories, an indication that the two lots were one business. Specific street addresses are vague prior to 1897, but that year, painters W.H. and George Lovett were at 319 S. 2nd, though they lived elsewhere.
By 1901, 319 S. 2nd was The Wyoming Saloon operated by Mary and Howard E. Allen. It was Laramie Plumbing in 1908 with George Naismith, owner, and Noah’s Ark Variety Store from 1911-1918. In 1918 it became a store called “Auto Goods”, followed by S.C. Lester’s Drug Store. In 1939 it was Crown Liquor Store with Leo Veta as manager. Ten years later it became Hamby’s Appliance, then Laramie Basin Hardware.
Editor’s Note: Judy Knight is the volunteer collection manager at the Laramie Plains Museum.
Caption: As fire rages two doors away, Laramie firefighters Larry Bobango and Stan Gibson are looking for embers on the roof of the Bits and Pieces gift shop. That building survived the June 20, 1989 fire as did the Jensen building next door, now Range Leather Co. But the next three buildings all burned completely, leaving only 321 S. 2nd St. on the corner standing – it was Tieman’s Men’s Clothing in 1989 and is now the Sugar Mouse. The fire started in the building sixth from the left, at 317 S. 2nd St. which at that time was a warehouse for Country Woods Furniture and not open to the public; until 1986 it had been Laramie Basin Hardware store. Starting from the left, the buildings in 1989 were Chickering Bookstore, Button n’ Bows (Children’s apparel), and Bits and Pieces gift shop. Next is the Jensen Building at 313 S. 2nd St. which survived the fire, but the building next to it, also part of Country Woods, was lost as were the next two buildings. Photo courtesy of the Laramie Fire Department.