When Amber Catterton found out that an old, two-storied brick building located next to her Bellflower home caught fire on the morning of June 28, she didn’t waste time hurrying back home from her job in Jonesburg.

“I rushed home and then I called my boss and told him I will not be back,” Catterton said. “The building was still on fire. There’s no electricity. My kids are not staying home with no electricity.”

Most of the Bellflower community lost power for hours after a fire engulfed the building on the east end of Howard Street. It was a bank, a hotel and a Masonic Lodge before it became vacant for years. No one was hurt in the fire.

“It’s been empty for the last 10 years,” Bellflower resident Laura Burnham said. “We haven’t seen anybody there. So I don’t know what sparked it.”

Randy Beeman, who is from St. Louis, said he couldn’t figure out what caused the fire. He purchased the building in the mid-1990s and used it as a recording studio for years.

“It wasn’t electrical, I can tell you that,” Beeman said.

The blaze started at around 7:30 a.m. and lasted for most of the day.

“My sister-in-law called me and said there was a fire on Howard Street in an abandoned building,” Beeman said. “I knew it was that building because it’s the only abandoned building on Howard Street.”

The building began operating as the Bank of New Bellflower in 1904.

“The bank went down in 1929,” Beeman said. “The Masons then bought it. It was a Masonic Hall until the mid-1990s. I built an apartment above it and ran a recording studio there for probably 15 years.”

Twelve fire departments were at the scene, including ones from Bellflower, Montgomery City, Wellsville, New Florence, Jonesburg, Wright City and Lincoln County. Burnham said firefighters had a hard time stopping the blaze.

“They thought they had it out, then it sparked up again,” Burnham said. “Everybody has been out watching it. The kids were not in school, so they were around.”

When fire struck, Burnham was the first person to call 911. She lived about two blocks from the building.

“(My husband) Jim went for a walk,” said Burnham, who has been living in Bellflower for 11 years. “ He came running back and said, ‘That building is on fire over there.’ So I called 9-1-1.”

Catterton works at Jonesburg Nursing Home. After getting a call about the fire, she immediately made the 20-minute drive back home because she was worried about the safety of her two children, one is age 7 and the other is age 14.

“The lady I was buying my trailer from is my son’s aunt and she called me to see if I was home,” Catterton said. “I was like, ‘No.’ Then, she told me about the fire. So I got off the phone. If it isn’t close to the house, I’ll just stay at work. But when she told me it was a brick building, I was like, ‘No, I gotta go home. My babies are home.’”

Catterton, a 14-year resident of Bellflower, said even though she was happy that everyone in the Howard Street neighborhood was safe, she felt sorry for Beeman.

“That poor man,” Catterton said. “It just sucks that they’re losing the building. It’s definitely going to be weird not seeing it, though.”