KSHB 41 reporter Ryan Gamboa covers Cass County in Missouri. He also covers agricultural topics and all rural communities. Ryan is dedicated to giving rural America a voice in a large metropolitan area. No story is too small, so please reach out with your ideas to Ryan. Share your story idea with Ryan.
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A huge fire swept through the heart of Cameron, Mo., on Monday, destroying century-old buildings that served as cornerstones of the community's identity and history.
No one was injured. The cause of the fire is under investigation
The loss extends far beyond brick and mortar for this small Missouri town founded in 1865 as a railroad crossroad.
"I just think everyone is trying to make sense of what happened," Gracie Campbell, a business owner said.
The fire wrecked two historic buildings that stood for more than 100 years, leaving behind only smoldering ruins and ash where generations of residents once shopped and lived.
"This'll have to all be torn down," Roger Day another resident told KSHB 41 News photojournalist Lauren Leslie.
For Stan Hendrix, a volunteer researcher with the Cameron Historical Society who grew up in the town, watching the buildings burn was particularly painful.
"To see these buildings, smoldering and smoking after a big fire like that, because I grew up in this town, and I grew up going in an out of those buildings when I was a teenager," Hendrix said. "When a couple of buildings go down like this, it just tears our hearts out."
The destroyed structures represented more than just storefronts.
Cameron was founded at the crossroads of byways connecting Kansas City to Des Moines and the old Mormon settlements in Caldwell County to Fort Leavenworth.
When Missouri's first east-to-west railroad came through from Hannibal to St. Joseph, Cameron became a true hub.
"It has continued to be ever since it was founded in 1865," Hendrix said.
The buildings that burned held layers of history.
The railroad that Jesse James' gang once robbed ran right in front of the buildings.
Part of a Michael Douglas film, "Adam at 6 A.M.," used the now-destroyed buildings as a backdrop.
"These buildings being over a hundred years old were built with a certain character of structural integrity that you don't get out of just steel framed with a facade out front," Hendrix said. "These had real class and character."
One piece of history that narrowly survived was Cameron's famous sycamore tree, known as "The Witness Tree."
Planted in the early 1920s as a memorial to a railroad employee who died on the job, the tree sat just 40 feet from the flames.
Dr. Mark Carr, a Cameron resident, noted that the fire's spread was typical of older downtown areas.
"In these old towns, they weren't constructed in a way that would prevent this from happening," Carr said. "It's so common when you have adjoining walls, if there's a fire in one, it keeps going down to the end of the block."
For Paula Dinwiddie, who was born and raised in Cameron, the loss cuts deep.
"It's heartbreaking, you can't get that back," Dinwiddie said. "You know, you can rebuild, but it's not the same. You're not gonna have that history, that nostalgia, it won't."
Business owner Rosalind Marner experienced the fire's intensity firsthand.
"It was a little scary at one point, at one point, I heard and felt a big boom, that's when I started packing up to evacuate," Marner said.
Despite the fear, Marner witnessed the community's spirit in action.
"The people rallied around, she said. "I saw people carrying in water and pizzas for all the emergency crews."
But the spirit that built the town continues to drive its residents forward.
"Cameron is a resilient town, they'll bounce back," Dinwiddie added. "But its gonna be hard."
Hendrix encourages people to appreciate historic architecture while they can.
"Don't be afraid to drive around and look at the scenery," he said. "Drive around and look at the old buildings here or any other small town. If you were going to take someone on a tour of Kansas City, you take them to the old structures and the old places where historic things happened."
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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