'Years of history, just gone': Massive fire destroyed an antiques warehouse in Columbia

Thursday evening, Dana Torres and Mike Groff were hanging out in Columbia's Rotary Park, just off the east side of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge, having a few beers when it happened.

Groff saw a massive orange ball of flames just across street and said, "What the hell is that?"

The flames were leaping from the Tollbooth Antique Warehouse, housed in an old clothing factory at the east base of the bridge.

"It was like an explosion," Groff said. "I was a Marine and I never saw anything like that in all my life. It scared the (bleep) out of me."

Torres said, "It's a hell of a tremendous loss."

The massive fire was reported at about 8:30 p.m. Thursday and quickly went to second and then third alarm. Firefighters from Lancaster and York counties rushed to assist Columbia firefighters to control the blaze, which was so intense that it warped the steel beams that supported the building's roof and melted plastic bumpers on cars parked nearby.

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David Doolittle, who has owned the business for about 15 years, said he was home when his son, who lives nearby, called at about 9 p.m. to tell him the business was on fire. His son had seen the smoke from his home in town and upon investigating, saw that it was his father's business. Doolittle rushed to the scene. "By the time I got here, it was up in flames," Doolittle said.

Friday morning, the business's two main buildings were gutted. Another building on the property was undamaged and Doolittle said as soon as he gets the go ahead, he plans to open it to some of his vendors. Fire investigators were on the scene to determine the cause of the fire. (One onlooker speculated that it could have been started by squirrels. The building's windows were kept open during the recent heat wave and critters had been known to invade the structure.)

The 40,000-square-foot building housed some 50 vendors, Doolittle said. The loss, he said, could be more than $500,000 and could approach $1 million.

The building dates to the early 1900s, starting out life as a silk mill - producing material for parachutes for the military - and later housing the Kahn Lucas children's clothing factory.

Keith Rodgers, who lives across the Susquehanna River in Wrightsville, saw smoke from the fire Thursday evening and stopped by Friday morning to assess the damage. He and his kids had just visited the shop on Tuesday. He is a regular customer, searching for nautical items to add to his collection.

"It was the first place that my kids visited that burned down," Rodgers said. "They're just heartbroken."

He shook his head.

"It's a shame," he said. "Years of history, just gone."