Fallon Hotel Victim of Multiple Arson Attempts
LOCK HAVEN – “Someone is trying to burn down the Fallon Hotel,” said Lock Haven Fire Chief Bob Neff as crews cleaned up from several Sunday calls to the now empty, historic hotel on E. Water Street.
The most recent call came in about 9 p.m. Sunday as area firemen returned to the site of an earlier alarm, the rear portion of the pre-Civil War era structure. Neff said the multiple alarms were in response to fires which caused both exterior and interior damage to the rear of the brick building, in a “u” portion of the back. The structure has been vacant since its heating system gave out last December.
Neff said someone intentionally set the fires at the rear of the building. A passerby reported the first fire and firemen discovered the second one when they were responding to another arson at the rear of the building; Neff said someone ignited the interior of a truck parked between the city flood protection dike and the rear of the Fallon building.
In the interim there was another fire in a dumpster at the rear of an apartment building on the south side of E. Water Street, half a block away from the Fallon. Firemen quickly doused that fire behind an apartment complex owned by David Mayes. Mr. and Mrs. Terry Mantle own the Fallon building; they were called to the scene of the Fallon fires.
City police were investigating at the Fallon scene as Lock Haven area firemen returned to quarters shortly before 11 p.m. Sunday. The volunteer firemen prevented a major catastrophe to the three-story building adjacent to the Lock Haven Area YMCA.
