Frederick Gutekunst
1874, 4 January
[After the fire of McKean, Newhall and Borie's Sugar Refinery on Lagrange Place.]

Stereoview
Library Company of Philadelphia
Accession number: P.9058.144
 
Depicts the crumbling remains of the former seven-story brick refinery on the 200 block of Lagrange Place (now Filbert Street) after a fire swept through the building on January 4, 1874. Chunks of the walls have fallen to the ground, most of the windows are gone and piles of bricks cover the ground inside and outside of the building.
 
Reproduced in The Print and Photograph Department of the Library Company of Philadelphia's Center City Philadelphia in the 19th century (Portsmouth, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), p. 65.
 
Arcadia caption text: On the evening of January 4, 1874 fire swept through the north building of McKean, Newhall and Borie's Sugar Refinery on Lagrange Place, between Second and Third streets south of Arch Street. For three hours firefighters fought the blaze from the roof of another structure on the property and kept the fire from spreading to the building where expensive equipment and a valuable stockpile of sugar were kept. The company, nevertheless, experienced a $200,000 loss from the fire. This refinery, one of thirteen in the city in 1870, helped make Philadelphia a leading sugar refining city in America in the late 19th century.
 
LL/118161