OXFORD – More than 60 firefighters from four towns battled a blaze early Wednesday that destroyed the Cozy Cat Country Store on Route 26. The cause is being investigated.

The store, once operated as 3-D Kwik Stop convenience store and gas station, was housed in a 40- by 120-foot ell attached to the former Cummings family dairy barn.

Cozy Cat owners Cathy and Bruce Oleson of Ellsworth reopened the store last July after it had been vacant for several years. They leased the space for the store and adjoining redemption center and had the store contents insured.

No one was inside the store when the fire was reported at about 3:30 a.m. by Ed Knightly, who lives behind it. The store opens at 5 a.m. for breakfast customers.

Once flames reached the bow truss roof over the store, the roof collapsed causing “a complete loss,” Oxford Deputy Fire Chief Scott Hunter said.

The ell was divided into three, 40- by 40-foot sections, with the store in the front, redemption center in the middle and an antiques shop in the back abutting the 38- by 72-foot barn.

The entire building and surrounding 40 acres is owned by brothers Darrell and Dana Knightly of Paris and their sister Diane Knightly of Norway, Darrell Knightly said. It was not insured, he said.

The redemption center ceiling had some fire damage and there was smoke and water damage throughout. The antiques shop had some smoke damage, he said.

Firefighters descended on the scene with eight engines and four ladder trucks and kept the blaze from spreading to the redemption center, which was part of the store, and antiques shop, and the Kall-Us Antiques business owned by Don Dechene of Oxford, which filled the former dairy barn, which also has a bow roof. Darrell Knightly said Dechene sublet the antiques shop in the ell.

“They performed a miracle to get it out the way they did,” he said of firefighters. “It really impressed me.”

Hunter credited the automatic mutual aid agreement with Norway and Mechanic Falls as helping to mount a quick response. Paris also responded, and Otisfield provided coverage at the Oxford station.

“What actually happened was amazing to all of us,” Hunter said. “When Mechanic Falls got there I had them make a vent hole over the redemption center. They were able to hold (the fire) from going past the vent hole with their ladder operation. Their ladder was what saved most of the complex.”

Joel Davis, senior fire investigator for the state Fire Marshal’s Office, said the fire started in the back of the store, but “we have no idea” why. He said a state electrical inspector has been called to help determine the cause.

Hunter said the Olesons told him they were going to be looking for a place to reopen if that location isn’t going to be rebuilt.

Arthur “Bud” and Maxine Cummings purchased the 1895 homestead in 1938. Two separate fires destroyed the original farmhouse and barn in the 1940s, according to Oxford historian Margaret Ellsworth. The replacement barn, which now houses Kall-Us Antiques, was built in the late 1940s, Darrell Knightly said, with additions to it in 1954 and 1972. It lies between the NAPA Auto Parts store and Crystal Spring Farm.

Darrell said his father, John F. Knightly, bought the property in 1979 and opened the store under the name of Darrell’s grandfather’s business, W.H. Knightly Co. fuel distributors.

He said he has a ticket for a benefit dance on May 29, 1945, “at Bud Cummings’ new barn” sponsored by American Legion Post 112. The price was 42 cents, plus 8 cents tax, and the dance was possibly to help pay for the new barn.

“Maybe we can have one of those for the Knightlys and raise $300,000, but we’d probably have to charge more than 50 cents,” Darrell said with a laugh.

He said Wednesday night that he was uncertain of their future plans, but “I’d like to see a store there.”

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