1945: Lowe Seed Corn Burns

By Jack Klasey

August 2, 2025

On Friday evening, October 12, 1945, fire raged through five buildings on the grounds of the Lowe Hybrid Seed Company’s large plant at Aroma Park, causing an estimated $100,000 in damage.

The October 13 edition of the Kankakee Daily Journal reported that the blaze started “when a belt on the pulley operating the fan that circulates heat through the plant for drying [corn] flew off, the intense heat from a furnace in Plant 1 concentrated on the wood construction above the furnace and ignited it….The  fire, which started at 8:20 o’clock, reached its peak within the next two hours and was still burning this morning. Ironically, the fire—considered one of the worst in Kankakee County history—occurred during National Fire Prevention Week.”

Lawrence Lowe, owner of the hybrid seed corn plant, told the Journal that the fire destroyed two seed house plants, a horse barn, a hog house, and a corn crib. He said that the furnace and the 12-foot fan were located between the two seed houses. He said that if someone had seen that the belt was off [the fan] shortly after it happened, the fire “would never have started.” None of the twenty men working in the building at the time saw the accident until the fire was under way, Lowe said.

The plant owner estimated that from $30,000 to $40,000 worth of equipment was destroyed, as was approximately 8,000 bushels of seed corn, including foundation seed corn for both corn and popcorn. Included in the loss, Lowe said, was the yield from about 40 acres of this year’s white corn crop. None of the farm’s livestock, which included a large herd of Guernsey cows, was lost in the fire.

“The fire started in the two plants and spread swiftly,” the Journal reported. “It jumped to a horse barn located south of the No. 1 plant and from there, ignited a hog house located east of that and also a corn crib located even farther east.

“When firemen reached the scene, their only hope was to attempt to save some of the other buildings. With a choice of attempting to save the [Lowe family’s] house, located about 75 feet to the west of the two plants, or the horse barn south of the plants, Mr. Lowe chose the former, and the firemen centered their efforts on the residence.”

Lowe told the Journal, “The heat was so intense that a person with ordinary clothes on could not stand within a hundred feet of the fire. The firemen, however, dressed in their rubber suits, played a steady stream of water on the east side of the house and saved it from what would have been probable burning. I can’t praise those firemen enough for their work in saving my home.”

“The east side of the house gave indication of how near the home came to destruction,” the newspaper reported. “Much of the paint on that side was burned off, while the entire side was scorched. Neighbors and other persons among those who flooded the fire area helped in removing all of the furniture from the house.” Many of the neighbors and spectators who had carried the family’s furniture to safety on Friday night repeated the process, in reverse, on Saturday morning. “They scrubbed floors in the entire house, washed woodwork, carried furnishings back into place; within a few hours, the Lowe domicile was once more intact.”

The Lowe company’s office in the Plant No. 1 building did not fare as well as the Lowe residence. “Fritz Kaufman, Harry Dill and myself started out of the office with part of the records and equipment,” Lawrence Lowe recalled. “Fritz was able to carry out one filing case. I was next in line and saved a couple of machines. Harry, who was also carrying some of the records, was forced to drop them and run to save his life when the fire swept down on us.”  In the Saturday edition of the newspaper, it was reported that “A large portion of the records of the firm were recovered, including many dealers’ records.”

Not so fortunate, however, was Professor Orrin Bolin, a former University of Illinois faculty member, who had joined the Lowe Hybrid Seed staff a few weeks before the fire. “I had records from my plant breeding experiments covering the past eight years in that office,” he said, “and now I have to stand by and watch them go up in smoke. Plant breeding isn’t something that you can take up where you left off. Now, I’ll have to start all over again.”

Despite the loss of two production buildings in the Friday night fire, the company owner said, “The production of corn handled annually by the company can be dried and graded properly in the remaining buildings on the place used for this purpose. The largest is one erected two years ago.” He also announced that a “commodious up-to-date office” would be erected.

Today, the Aroma Park site that housed the Lowe Hybrid Seed Company for many years is owned by AgReliant Genetics LLC, a major producer of corn and soybean seeds. The Aroma Park facility was converted to a soybean seed processing plant in 2018.

Jack Klasey is a former Journal reporter and a retired publishing executive. He can be contacted at jwklasey@comcast.net.