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Twenty-one years after over two dozen barns were intentionally set ablaze in the Back Mountain, the crimes still remain unsolved.

It all began at 5 a.m. on May 17, 1987 when Grange Hall on West Eighth Street in Kingston Township caught fire. Although the building was not a barn, Trucksville Fire Chief Bill Eck, who has been chief since 1979, says Grange Hall was the first of many arson fires that would occur in the area within the next 17 months or so.

Another notable structure affected was one of Ralph Sands’ barns located near his home at 1525 West Eighth Street in Kingston Township. The well-known farmer lost some of his prized dairy cattle in the fire.

Farmers and police officers hid in the barns hoping to find the suspect.

And then the fires stopped, but just in the local area. Eck says mysterious arson barn fires began in another region of the state soon after and later spread to other areas in Pennsylvania.

Was the same arsonist responsible for the arson barn fires throughout the state? And was he at work elsewhere before coming to the Back Mountain? I think so.

According to the Summerhill Volunteer Fire Company in Beaverdale, Pa., arson fires plagued the township over a period of 14 months beginning in June of 1982. The fires destroyed buildings and barns, including Buckhorn Grange Hall.

An article titled, “Building a Future with Pieces from the Past,” by Bob Brooke of the Antiques Almanac mentions a string of arson fires in the 1980s in York, Pa. Brooke interviewed Melinda G. Higgins, executive director of Historic York, Inc. (HYI) about her non-profit organization that rehabilitates buildings. Higgins told Brooke the organization lost many architectural items in two of the fires.

“Higgins sadly recalls that during a series of arson fires in area barns in the 1980s, HYI lost a great number of items in two of the barns,” Brooke said in his article.

I’m not a police investigator, but to me, these cases sure sound as if they could be tied. And there are probably so many other arson barn fires that occurred in Pennsylvania in the 1980s that I couldn’t find in a Google search.

An article in The Times Leader in 1992 says a volunteer firefighter was arrested on the Back Mountain arson charges and was found not guilty. Hopefully one day the person or persons responsible for the arsons will come forward.

P.S. To learn about what the Grange in Kingston Township is up to now, read my story in this Sunday’s edition of The Dallas Post.

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