(ST. LOUIS) — A 107-year-old St. Louis building that houses rare manuscripts was badly damaged in a fire, but authorities are hopeful most of the manuscripts were spared.
The fire broke out Tuesday night at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. At least 80 firefighters responded as flames shot out through the roof and smoke poured from windows.
No one was injured. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The museum is the 13th branch in a system created by California collectors David and Marsha Karpeles in 1983. The St. Louis branch opened in 2015.
Exhibits are rotated among branches, and the museum’s Facebook page said the St. Louis site was currently exhibiting documents from Russia, from 1711-1963, and a section on the St. Louis Black Media Experience.
Kerry Manderbach, director of the St. Louis museum, said it also had a yearbook from Fidel Castro’s time in high school, and military documents pertaining to Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary.
Manderbach said the manuscripts were largely housed on the first floor, and the fire was apparently mostly on the second. The documents were all in protective cases or files, and the fire department tried not to soak them while fighting the upstairs fire, he said.
The building, a six-columned brick-and-stone church with arching stained-glass windows, sits on a block of mansions, luxury apartments and grand old homes. The structure was originally built as the Third Church of Christ, Scientist.
Previously, the St. Louis museum has displayed a Gutenberg Bible, the Confederate Constitution, a map from the Spanish Armada, Babe Ruth’s first baseball contract, the first draft of the Bill of Rights, and Columbus’ handwritten letter describing the coasts of America in his last voyage of discovery.
