The month of May held a high and a low for the pulse of Madera. A visit by President Roosevelt represented the zenith of community pride, but then came the nadir. Just eleven days after Roosevelt’s departure, Madera‘s Pacific Coast Match Factory went up in flames. At 1:30 in the afternoon of May 29, 1903, C.M. Petty’s dream went up in smoke. In just half an hour it was turned into nothing but a mass of ruins.
The Pacific Coast Match factory had been on the crest of a spirit of optimism which pervaded the business community as Madera progressed into the 20th century. Agriculture was on the rebound after the economic disaster of the 1890’s. The old flume of the defunct Madera Flume and Trading Company had been rebuilt by a new enterprise — the Madera Sugar Pine Lumber Company — and fresh lumber was shooting down the huge water slide from the mountains to the town’s new mill site. It was a great time for business, and that’s why C. M. Petty was so excited.
The Pennsylvania transplant had been in Madera for two or three years when back in May,1901, he announced that Madera was going to have a new factory. This latest local enterprise would be dubbed the Pacific Match Company, and it would be the only producer of parlor matches west of the Mississippi River. According to Petty, it couldn’t miss. He fully expected to break the nationwide monopoly held by the Diamond Match Company, and it would all start right in Madera.