Fire destroys old Kenna store and post office

Fire claimed the iconic Kenna store and service station along U.S. 70 late Saturday afternoon. Investigators said Tuesday they don’t know the exact cause of the blaze but deemed it “suspicious.”

Elida volunteer Fire Chief Darrell Chenault said firefighters were alerted to the fire at 4:58 p.m. on Saturday and the building was “fully engulfed by the time I got on scene.”

Chenault said arson is a possibility.

“It was either accidental or arson. There is no electricity or propane going to the building,” he said on Sunday.

Fire marshals and state inspectors were on scene early this week and able to dig through the rubble. Plans to bring in cadaver dogs were called off when officials were able to access the building and determine no one died in the fire.

No injuries were reported.

Kenna is about 10 miles south of Elida in Roosevelt County.

For decades the store was the focal point of the tiny community and those who passed by on the highway. It served as post office as well as a general merchandise store.

Jayne Taylor, who compiled “Kenna: A Ranching Community” wrote that the service station was built in 1940. “It was given a lot of publicity in the road maps, etc., and many tourists stopped in Kenna for gas during the next 20 years.”

Volunteer firefighter Travis Bilbrey and Chenault said the building had been empty since it closed about seven years ago.

“There was a lot of history in the building,” Chenault said.

While Kenna is essentially a ghost town today – just a church and community building, with no businesses remaining in the unincorporated village -- it once was “one of the largest cattle shipping points in the state,” according to “Roosevelt County History and Heritage.”

Around 1909, Kenna was home to a post office, bank, two hotels, several general merchandise stores and several saloons. “Around 1912, many homesteaders relinquished their claims due to drought and Kenna rapidly decreased both in size and importance,” the history book reports.

Kenna officially was established as Urton in 1902 when a post office was opened. Brothers named Urton from Missouri were among the first white settlers around 1884. A contractor named Kenna helped establish a camp for stagecoaches to stop and exchange mail and passengers sometime before 1899.

The post office and community name was changed from Urton to Kenna in 1906 after the railroad began running nearby.

Residents near Kenna today receive mail from the post office in Elida.

Editor David Stevens and correspondent Betty Williamson contributed to this report.