Shadows of people outlined by the intense flames of the Old Mill fire light up the sky in Sloatsburg back in March of 1955.

The flames lit up the sky back on that windy March night in 1955. Winds blew along the natural canyon created by the Ramapo River and railroad tracks, much like the recent high winds of our own seasonal warming weather, and fed a fire that raced through what was then the Ramapo Piece Dye Works that housed the Schwartz Yarn Co. in Sloatsburg, NY, causing a conflagration visible from miles away.

James “Popeye” Ventola stands by the Sloatsburg Fire Department‘s brand new 1954 American LaFrance 700, which fought the mill fire. The fire truck would be the last of Sloatsburg’s open cab trucks. Ventola would go on to later become SFD Chief from 1969-71.

Still considered perhaps the largest fire in Rockland County’s history, the fire eventually saw some 400 to 500 firefighters from across the county battle for more than 30 hours to contain the spread of the blaze to other parts of village. In the end, most of the old mill works was charred and gutted, taking with it a large source of Sloatsburg’s manufacturing history and income. With an estimated payroll of $10,000 per week, the mill contributed nearly a tenth of the village’s municipal income and supported 200 families.

Current Sloatsburg Mayor Carl Wright said that the old mill supplied 37 national distributors with material — the fire created a national shortage that had distributors scrambling to find other sources for their products.

Wright said that the Sloatsburg mill was known for manufacturing beautiful colors. “I can see the reds, blues and yellows right now,” Wright said, “just as clearly as I can see you.”

The Village of Sloatsburg and Historical Society will celebrate the village’s historic past with a presentation on the 60th Anniversary of the Mill Fire at Sloatsburg’s Village Hall on Wednesday, March 18, at 7:30 p.m. Rockland County Historian Craig Long will be a featured speaker.

The mill burns, reflected in the millrace, the remains of which are still visible today. According to Thomas Bollatto Sr., firefighters pumped some 5 million gallons of water to fight the fire.

Water power provided the muscle for manufacturing along the Ramapo River in and around Sloatsburg in the 18th and 19th centuries, essentially helping to settle these parts. From Jeremiah Pierson’s Iron Works down river in Hillburn at Torne Valley to the original Sloatsburg dam built by Issac Sloat in 1792 to Isaac’s son, Jacob Sloat, who built a textile mill at the same site in the early 1800s, mills along the Ramapo River provided employment and acted as economic anchors for the community. Just downriver from the original Sloat dam, along what is today’s Mill Street, near the Community Fields, stood the mill that caught fire — which started in a first floor dry box and flashed through the mill’s oil and chemical soaked floors.

According to Thomas Bollatto Sr. (now deceased), it was the mill’s own millrace that probably saved many other buildings in Sloatsburg. Bollatto, interviewed by James Walsh for The Journal News 10 years ago, remembered that “there was no way of putting out the fire with that wind blowing. It lit up this whole end of the county.” Like many Sloatsburgers during that period, Bollatto worked at the mill off and on in the 1930s.

Firefighters from across Rockland County came to mutual aid when Sloatsburg’s huge mill burned 60 years ago — the Sloatsburg Fire Department stood guard over the remains for three days.

Father of Sloatsburg’s longtime Clerk and Treasurer Tom Bollatto, Bollatto was 91 years-old at the time of the interview and recounted how he and then Sloatsburg Fire Chief Joseph Miele were the first firefighters on the scene. “If it wasn’t for that millrace half the village would have burned down,” he said.

The fire that killed off major manufacturing in Sloatsburg also demonstrated the unity of the Rockland County volunteer firefighters, who, one by one, came to Sloatsburg’s aid, starting with Suffern and eventually included tankers from as far away as Goshen, NY.

Remains of the Sloatsburg mill that stood between the railroad tracks and Ramapo River at Mill Street.

Although the fire shut down the huge mill, it wasn’t until the 1970s that the village acted to condemn the abandoned building for public health and safety issues.

The building had become a favorite haunt of local high school-aged kids. Sloatsburg Mayor Carl Wright, who by happenstance was also mayor at that time, told how the mill building was dropped two days before Thanksgiving in 1977, with the high mill smokestack the last thing to drop.

Wright recalled how one of the bulldozer operators jumped from his machine after the demolition and announced that it was Miller Time — a perfect hat tip to the hugely popular commercial at that time that changed beer advertising by focusing the picture on hard-working laborers who earned their keep and wanted nothing more than a cold one for a job well done.

Images of the Sloatsburg mill fire are from the archives of Rockland County Historian Craig Long and Sloatsburg Mayor Carl Wright (several may be from the Sloatsburg Historical Society).

The Village of Sloatsburg and Sloatsburg Historical Society will sponsor a 60th Anniversary of the Mill Fire program on Wednesday, March 18, at 7:30 p.m. at Sloatsburg Village Hall. The program will feature a presentation by Rockland County Historian Craig Long as well as by the Historical Society. Sloatsburg residents are encouraged to attend.