Historic Iowa Pipe Organ Shop Destroyed by Fire

A town like Lake City, Iowa takes pride in its history more than most. It has a sense of humor about itself, too, as it recently went viral for a slogan on its water tower, touting itself as having "anything but a lake" and being more of a town than a city, as its name implies.

In other news that wasn't so humorous, after five decades and thousands of jobs created, Dobson Pipe Organ Builders is easily one of its biggest landmarks but it has suffered a major loss.

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The tragedy for those folks is that after a recent fire, Dobson is pretty much a total loss. The fire reportedly took place Tuesday afternoon around 4 p.m. There was an injury to an employee trying to put out the fire. Dobson was coming off a project for the University of Dubuque's John And Alice Butler Hall on April 6 and they've also created custom pipe organs for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles and the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

Both the shed and the main building at Dobson were damaged. A quote from the Graphic Advocate of Calhoun County said:

Area firefighters converged at the Downtown Square on Tuesday afternoon in Lake City, battling a blaze to a structure located north of the Dobson Building. Despite courageous efforts, the fire engulfed both the shed and the pipe organ builders’ main building.

According to KCCI, it seems a malfunctioning fan caused the incident.