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Hunt club plans to rebuild after Tuesday morning fire
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Rubble remains after a Tuesday-morning fire at a clubhouse owned by the Mahoning County Coon Hunters Protective Association. The clubhouse was more than 30 years old and will be rebuilt.
By Robert Connelly
ELLSWORTH
A fire destroyed a clubhouse Tuesday morning belonging to a 100-year-old hunting club.
Ellsworth Fire Chief Robert Sternberg said crews were called to the Mahoning County Coon Hunters Protective Association clubhouse, 9680 Akron-Canfield Road, at 3:44 a.m.
Sternberg said the fire was under control by about 4:30 a.m., and there were no occupants at the time of the blaze.
Todd Schuller, acting secretary of the hunting club, said the building was more than 30 years old and was built by members. A second clubhouse, on the same piece of property off of Akron-Canfield Road, was untouched by the fire. That building is more than 50 years old.
“We will rebuild it. There’s no question in my mind,” he said.
Fire departments from Damascus, North Jackson, Canfield, Berlin Center and Greenford joined Ellsworth to contain the fire. Sternberg explained that those departments were called in because there aren’t hydrants in Ellsworth and they brought in their water tankers.
The state fire marshal’s office was at the scene Tuesday with Sternberg and began a preliminary investigation to determine the cause.
The hunters’ club had been around for 100 years. “It’s a fixture of our community,” Sternberg said. “They put on a lot of benefits in our community and our members attend those. It looks like they’re going to rebuild, and they’re a strong organization.”
Schuller said the group has about 100 retired and active members, varying in age from young to older. The biggest concern is its annual Fall Festival in September, Schuller said. The event already has 400 vendors lined up, but the building used for the event burned Tuesday morning.
“Can we be structurally operable by Fall Festival? I don’t know,” Schuller said Tuesday afternoon. “We have to make sure everything is in place so that we can do,” the festival, he said.
The regularly scheduled board meeting was set to take place Tuesday night at the clubhouse that burned. Schuller said was still going to meet and decide how to rebuild.