Tansy Motor Service Station on the northwest corner of N. Delaware and St. Clair Streets, 8 Feb. 1949 (Courtesy of the Indianapolis Fire Department)
This Indianapolis Fire Department photograph depicts fire damage at the Tansy Motor Service Station at 802 N. Delaware Street (northwest corner of N. Delaware and St. Clair Streets). Four employees escaped from a window after an explosion and fire early in the morning of February 8, 1949. As a precaution, firemen stirred residents from the fourteen adjacent apartments and ordered them to vacate the building. An article in the Kokomo Tribune reported that owner Loral R. Tansy estimated the damage at $150,000. Fire chief Roscoe McKinney thought that the fire was caused by a gas heater igniting the fumes of a gas tank undergoing repairs.
Despite the fire that occurred 65 years ago, the building still stands. Today it houses a cell phone store and a photography studio. The wood frame apartment building has been replaced by a block commercial building. In the background is the curved addition to the Indianapolis Public Library. To the left in the distance are the two cut-off spires of the 1906 Meridian Street Methodist Episcopal Church, later home to the Indiana Business College and currently Meridian Arch condominiums.
800 N. Delaware Street in 2011 (Google Street View)
