make the run to the wholesale district." 1906. Ladderman Adolph Hermanson was killed on December 29, 1906, while he was fighting a massive fire in the Cohn, Goldsmith & Co. building at 210-222 South Los Angeles Street. He was hurled from a fifth-floor window when a jet of water struck him. "Wooden goods and haberdashery comprised the building's stock," the Los Angeles Times'' reported. "The structure itself was far from fireproof. The [fire] department was faced with the same proposition a man would have who must extinguish a bolt of burning wool with a tin dipper." The building was gutted. Damaged businesses in nearby buildings were S. J. Smith Machinery Manufacturing Company, B.F. Kieruiff Company electric switchboard manufacturer, Pacific Wire and Steel Company and Fullerton Iron Works."In Other Times," Los Angeles Times, December 30, 1956, pageA-51907. A fire almost gutted a building at 256-260 South Los Angeles Street, occupied by the P.H. Mathews Paint Company and the Wholesale Drug Company, but a water tower on the block saved the other buildings on the block from damage. The flames started on a lower floor but shot up an elevator shaft to the upper floors. The fire was first reported by a patrolman of the Merchants' Fire Dispatch, who sent an alarm over a private telephone line connected directly to Fire Department headquarters, from whence Chief [Walter] Lips led a team toward the incident. Seeing the extent of the flames before even arriving on scene, he stopped the horses and sent in a second and third alarm from a fire-alarm box; this precaution brought more men to the site to battle the blaze and saved the other buildings on the block. It was noted that during the preceding five years the block, "in the very heart of the wholesale district," had been struck by four very serious fires.1908. On June 4, 1908, flames began on the top floor of the three-story Phillips Printing Company at 354 South Los Angeles Street, on the corner of Boyd Street, apparently from crossed electrical wires, and by the time firemen arrived, the conflagration was so hot the men had to work in relays. All the contents of the building seemed to be lost, including, it was feared, the manuscript of the forthcoming Los Angeles City Directory. The quarters and stock of the Pacific Garment Company, in the same building, were ravaged.1909. Driven by high winds from