A century of town history up in smoke

A conflagration at the Iron Hog last Wednesday left a pile of rubble and ash in its wake, but it destroyed more than just a building.

The Dixie Inn at the corner of Highway LL and Dixie Road on the far northern end of the Town of Port Washington was a staple of life for generations. 

Built around 1920, it began as a gas station off Highway 141, one of the major routes in the state, with a tavern and eatery added later, Mike Didier, the town chairman and a local historian, said. 

While many people believe the Dixie Inn was named for Dixie Road, Didier said that’s not the case.

“My grandma (Betty Didier) said no, the road was named for the gas station,” he said, noting it sold Dixie gasoline.

A popular stop for locals and travelers, as well as golfers frequenting the nearby Port Country Club —later Squire’s Country Club — the Dixie Inn did a bustling business for generations even as the gas station and eatery changed hands numerous times. The gas station was closed, probably around 1950, but the restaurant remained.

The building and business remained, but the name changed around 2010, Didier said. Since then, it’s been known as Dixie Chix Pub and Grill, Boondoxx, Timmy G’s Bar and Grill and most recently the Iron Hog.

Last Wednesday, fire destroyed the building that had lasted a century. 

While no one was injured in the blaze, the fire left a college student who rented an apartment in the building homeless.

Port Washington Fire Chief Mark Mitchell said the department was called out about 12:30 p.m. Feb. 2 by an employee at the Iron Hog who noticed smoke.

The fire started in the basement, and Mitchell said that when firefighters arrived smoke was coming from a kitchen vent in the southwest corner of the back of the building.

“It was just coming out of the basement, up the stairs and out the kitchen vents,” he said.

Firefighters immediately went into the basement and began pouring water on the fire.

“They said they could hear crackling in the walls above where they were at,” he said. “They said they couldn’t see any fire. It was just solid smoke.”

They set up a second line, Mitchell said, and continued to work on the fire, approaching it from the first floor as well as the basement.

“I think the fire was farther in than they could get to,” Mitchell said. “Within a half-hour, they were reporting fire coming up through the floor in the bar. We were just chasing it.”

They cut into the floor and sprayed water down into the basement, which Mitchell said was “somewhat cavernous,” where it could be done safely, he said.

They also tried to get into the second floor, but the floor was too spongy to be considered safe, he said.

“It would have been a death trap if we had sent people in,” Mitchell said.

After about 40 minutes, Mitchell said, he pulled the firefighters out of the building and they continued to fight the fire from outside.

“We knew the floor was unstable,” he said. “Downstairs, they saw some of the joists were burned away. 

“We tried a lot of different things, but it was just too embedded. The fire had a pretty good head start. We were playing from behind the whole time.”

  Mitchell said firefighters continued to fight the fire from outside. By late afternoon, after consulting with building owner Chad Arndt, they used an excavator from Jentges Excavating to tear down the walls.

“He kind of shook his head,” Mitchell said of Arndt. “He had a tear in his eye.

“Once they opened it up, it was just flames. We let it free burn while we were throwing water on it.”

Arndt refused comment on the fire.

No one was in the building when firefighters arrived, Mitchell said, and none of the firefighters were injured.

Shortly after they arrived, he said, firefighters rescued a cat from the building — one of two owned by Sabrina Gruber, who rented an apartment in the building.

They took the cat to the ambulance, where they used a pet mask to give it oxygen.

The second cat came running out of the burning building about two hours later, Mitchell said.

Gruber, who is studying social work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Waukesha campus, said that while the first cat, Gizmo, survived, the other one, named Zephyr, died on Sunday.

Gruber said she was in class when Arndt called to tell her about the fire.

“I left my class right away and drove up there,” she said. “One of my cats was still in there so I was freaking out.”

Everything she owned went up in smoke, she said.

“I just had my school stuff and the clothes I was wearing,” said Gruber, who is staying with her father in Kewaskum.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help her, and people have been donating clothes and household items, which makes her feel supported, Gruber said.

“I’m just trying to focus on school,” she said. “I’m very overwhelmed and stressed out.” 

Sixteen fire departments and 75 firefighters responded to the fire, and they set up two places to fill tankers and transport water to the scene — one in Belgium and the other near Allen-Edmonds in Port Washington.

“We were at a point where we had 10 tankers and we didn’t want them bunched up,” Mitchell said.

Highway LL was also closed for hours as firefighters fought the blaze.

The Ozaukee County Highway Department was on hand to salt the area, and the Port Washington Street Department salted the street near Allen-Edmonds.

The Milwaukee Fire Bell came to the scene to provide coffee, hot chocolate and snacks to the firefighters, and a Johnson Bus vehicle served as a warming station.

Firefighters put about 225,000 gallons of water on the fire Wednesday, Mitchell said.

They returned to the scene about 5:40 a.m. Thursday when the fire rekindled and used another 6,000 gallons or so to extinguish the blaze, he said.

“It was just a big pile of rubble,” he said.

Mitchell said state fire investigators are investigating the cause of the fire, something he said is typical when there’s a fire of this magnitude.

The cause, he added, is not believed to be suspicious.

Mitchell said that Arndt, who had gone to Home Depot to pick up some things with one of his employees and arrived at the scene about 15 minutes after firefighters, told him that they had been disassembling a cooler in the basement using saws and grinders before they left.