Tobacco Barn Fire Destroys Cheston's Crop, Aug. 18, 1923

Tobacco Barn Fire on Cheston Farm Could Have Been Worse

This was the scene that greeted members of the Trenton Volunteer Fire Department last Thursday afternoon when they answered a call to the A.H. Cheston Farm, five miles west of Trenton.

Prompt action upon their arrival put the fire out and saved a major part of the tobacco barn, but the vast majority of the tobacco in the barn was destroyed. Cheston commented, “I bragged too soon. Just this morning I was talking about what good burners I had in that barn, and now look at it!”

Unlike neighboring Lenoir County, which has had one of its worst years for tobacco barn fires, the Trenton Department reports answering calls to fewer barn fires this year than last.

From the front page of the Jones County Journal, Trenton, N.C., Thursday, Aug. 18, 1960