On this date in 1905, fire destroyed the Grand Central Hotel in Valley City. It was believed to have started in the heating system, though the owner of the hotel, Pat McNulty, couldn’t determine the source as smoke began to fill the building. For several hours the smoke continued to build, then finally the place erupted into flames around 2pm. The newspaper said the blaze “proved a very hard proposition for the [fire] department to handle,” as the smoke was just too dense. It also affected a connected novelty store. At one point the firemen thought they had the fire under control, but it broke out again, stopping only after destroying seventy-five feet of property along Main Street, causing thousands of dollars of damage.