70,000 Books Go Up in Flames in Flatonia Fire

Personal Library of Bookstore Chain Founder Destroyed in Monday Blaze in Downtown

Gary Hoover’s home and his 70,000-book personal library burned to the ground in downtown Flatonia Monday morning, Oct. 3. He got out of the building, located at 113 W. South Main St., with just the clothes on his back.The building used to house the Flatonia Community Clinic.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Hoover said he had smoked a cigarette in the front of his building that morning. He said an ash began smouldering some papers. “I put it out, I poured water on it, I checked it and checked it again,” he said. “It was fine, no smoke. I laid down for an hour, maybe 45 minutes, and I heard a loud smoke alarm go off. I came out from where I laid down and I saw a flame, a big flame. But it wasn’t in the same place where I had the smoldering thing. I can’t understand how it could be connected. All I know is I came out and tried to get a fire extinguisher. It couldn’t get it work. I came out and got a neighbor to call 911. I couldn’t go back in.”

“I hope I can save some of it,” he said. That hope didn’t come true. Firefighters from Flatonia and three neighboring departments fought the blaze from the time they arrived at 11:21 a.m. until bringing it under control around 6 p.m. Flatonia firefighters watch the fire throughout the night and into the next morning. They returned every hour on Wednesday to check on it.

“We went in and tried to do an interior attack, but there were a lot of items in our way and we couldn’t make it in,” said Flatonia Fire Chief Gregg Robinson. “There’s an extreme fire load with all those books. It’s just more of a fire load than we can get to.” The large historic brick building next door at 109 W. South Main St. was largely spared from the fire. That building suffered a broken window and some smoke damage.

All but one of Flatonia’s 16 firefighters were at the scene battling the fire on Tuesday (that one firefighters was away from town on Tuesday). Flatonia Fire and Rescue was putting out a car fire on Interstate 10 when the call about the fire in town came over the radio. Robinson immediately called for help from the Schulenburg Volunteer Fire Department. SVFD responded with 14 firefighters and four fire trucks. La Grange VFD sent two firefighters and a tanker. Waelder VFD also responded with a tanker and three firefighters. Muldoon VFD also assisted. The five departments dumped somewhere between 165,000 and 250,000 gallons of water on the blaze. The City of Flatonia’s water supply dropped to just 15 percent of capacity during firefighting operations. Mayor Dennis Geesaman said the City had to boost pumping during the fire to keep up with water usage. Tankers from the other departments shuttled water from out of town to alleviate the drain on Flatonia’s water supply.

Flatonia Fire and Rescue’s “Tower 3” ladder truck showed its worth during the blaze. Firefighters used its massive water cannon to control the largest flames that threatened with buildings to east. Geesaman said the City Council recently discussed selling the truck due to its seldom use and difficulty in training firefighters to use it.

“It’s a good thing we have it here today,” Geesaman said.

The fire attracted a large crowd of spectators who watched the building burn from Railroad Park and the intersection at Penn and S. Main. The wind blew mostly in favor of the firefighters. A light westerly breeze kept the flames and smoke away from the more developed parts of downtown.

Hoover said the building and contents were not insured.

“I couldn’t afford the insurance,” he told the Record in an interview on Tuesday while his home burned behind him.

Flatonia Police Chief Lee Dick is investigating the fire with assistance from the State Fire Marshal’s Office. Hoover founded the Bookstop chain of bookstores in Austin in the 1980s. The chain sold to Barnes and Noble in 1989 for a reported $41.5 million. He went on to start several other business ventures before moving to Flatonia and purchasing the building in 2018.

According to the Fayette County Appraisal District, the property was valued at $474,700. That number does not include the contents.