Lonely Chimney south of Longview, MO USA
N 36° 41.240 W 094° 12.365
15S E 392247 N 4060865
Lonely chimney from a house that was burned down by two fire departments for training, south of Longview, Missouri
Waymark Code: WMWRX3
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 10/08/2017
Views: 2
The following history of this lonely chimney is 100% fact, since I was there when it became lonely!
The house that once stood here, along MO-76 west of Albert E. Brumley Road, was abandoned and in total disrepair. In 2013 the owners allowed the fire departments of Stella (which serves the near-ghost town of Longview) and Washburn to burn down the house for training, on 2 February 2013. (Some other departments were contacted, but were not able to take part.) Our daughter was a firefighter with Washburn.
A lot of training was done before the house was set on fire, acting as if it were already on fire; and involving crawling through it, and other firefighting actions. The Washburn firefighters left for home before the Stella firefighters set the house truly on fire, not just smoke. Then we all just stood back and watched it burn.
Be sure to check out the photos in the gallery to see the above progression.
All that is left of the house is the lonely chimney and the slab that the house was on. As with most lonely chimneys, it looks very desolate. In this case we know that no one got hurt when the chimney became lonely.
Although this is on private property, there is plenty of place to pull along the road to view it. In fact, you can drive up the pull-through driveway that runs along where the house stood.
To the north is the town of Longview, and a long way beyond that is the bigger town of Stella. To the west is the ghost town of Bethpage. To the south a long ways is the town of Powell, where Albert E. Brumley wrote the well-known gospel song "I'll Fly Away". That is the reason that E highway, which ends at this corner where MO-76 comes through, is named for him.