A five-alarm fire has destroyed a factory which had made hand-sized fried pies since 1922 and singed nearby houses, but nobody was injured.
Fire Superintendent Charles Parent tells WWL-TV that the factory is a total loss but firefighters limited damage to nearby houses to their exteriors.
He says the blaze began in the fryer room. Parent says the only employee on duty reported seeing smoke there and got out safely.
The Simon Hubig Pie Co. factory was the only one in a Texas-based chain to survive the Great Depression.
Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 closed the factory until January 2006. But the company sold T-shirts over the Internet while it was closed, and then sold pies over the Internet as well as locally after it reopened.