RONALD Lightbourn took this photo in 2011 of the Sir Milo Butler home and store which was destroyed by fire early Thursday morning. Mr. Lightbourn was gathering pictures for his third book Reminiscing III – Nassau THEN and NOW, which he hopes to publish by Christmas 2015. The Butler home will to be included in the book.

Mr Lightbourn remembers in the 1960s buying pieces of block ice in the Butler store, for Sunday boating picnics. Once or twice Sir Milo could be seen in his Sunday best preparing for church, he said.

This was Sir Milo’s home, with a store on the ground floor, until he was appointed the first Bahamian governor general of the Bahamas in August 1973 and moved to Government House. He died in 1979 after a long illness.

Claudette Butler, a member of the family, said that since 1994 the family had planned to build a museum on the property of the now destroyed building. She added that those plans were not concrete.

“We’ve lost a lot of history,” she said.