First fire in New Fairfield

  Dated July 31, 1969, this piece in the Palladium-Item, Richmond:

FAIRFIELD -- A house, recently moved to Fairfield from a location two miles north of Brookville, was destroyed by fire Wednesday night. It had belonged to the Elby Davidson family, who had not yet taken occupancy. 

The house had been moved from Indiana 101 near old Fairfield to New Fairfield. Old Fairfield and the former site of the house are in the path of the Brookville Reservoir, under construction.

A fireman said Davidson had been working on an addition to the house and left about 5 p.m. A neighbor noticed smoke and called the fire department about 8 p.m. 

Firemen had almost extinguished the fire when they ran out of water. By the time another truck arrived, the home was destroyed. No damage estimate was given.

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No damage estimate = the place was destroyed. 

It was the guy's home. That's what damage was estimated. There was a cruel reality to how the process unfolded. Fairfield was not given any soul. It was a series of moving parts

Most likely, the neighbor was my mother. Our house was essentially across the street from the Davidsons, who lived a lot closer to Fairfield than the "two miles" the story reports.

Houses brought up the valley into New Fairfield were taken up a carved path from a creek just south of the hill toward the Klein-Huber farms. The gravel road up the hill was too steep for a low-boy.