Five Minute Histories: The 1904 Fire
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2024
- This upcoming Monday marks the 118th anniversary of the 1904 Fire, which destroyed a huge swath of downtown Baltimore. Join us today to learn about how it started and how Baltimore’s fire department quickly responded to the emergency. And we are delighted to have a special guest today! To show us some of the equipment used by the firefighters during the 1904 fire, we are joined by the Fire Museum of Maryland’s director, Steve Heaver! Thanks for watching and see you next week.
This is our series called "Five Minute Histories." We record short videos about different historic places all over Baltimore and post them on our Facebook page, TH-cam channel, and website. For more information or to become a member of Baltimore Heritage, check out: baltimoreherit...
My great great grandfather Capt. Chester Thurlow, saved many people who were trapped by the fire and the harbor, using his tugboat to tow people out from the flames. He was honored when he died in 1936, flags at half mast, he was the oldest tugboat master.
Liar
MANY years ago I was working at a hospital in Baltimore. We admitted a very old woman, and one evening she told the story of when she had been a little girl. One night her father woke her in the middle of the night and took her out onto the lawn of their home on Tilghman Island to see the glow in the northern sky. She said she asked why the sky was glowing. He told her, "Baltimore is on fire."
Wow! What a story!
My great uncle (William Beynon), for whom I was named, was a member of the Baltimore City Fire Department and fought in the Great Fire. I brought his photograph to show at the Centennial Commemoration in 2004!
When I worked for Maryland National Bank we heard lots of stories about The Fire. Many of the bank buildings had been gutted, but even in the rubble, their vaults were intact. More than a few banks dug out their vaults and opened them, only to find their contents burst into flames. The fires hadn't penetrated the vault, but the smoke got in and displaced the oxygen. The fires had heated the vault and the contents above 451 degrees. When the fresh air rushed in...
One bank got wise and waited more than a week before opening. No damage.
My Great Grandfather's father was a German immigrant who found a lot of work as a carpenter during the time after the fire. I still have his whole carpentry kit with all the tools they used to shape wood before prefabrication started replacing them.
A timely look at an historical event, given the recent loss of three of Baltimore's bravest.
Only Chicago in 1871was worse
There is a bottle somewhere on display in the Maryland Historical Society museum that had nails and other debris stuck in it. The bottle got hot and soft during the fire and the debris fell on it the rehardened. It was found during the cleanup.
Another interesting story about the fire: the inferno had grown so extensively that they had ran out of local departments to fight the fire, so they called in companies from nearby states to help. Unfortunately, when they arrived, they couldn't help because the couplings used by the fire hoses and hydrants weren't standardized, so their couplings wouldn't fit. The effect of this fire led to the eventual standardization of fire hydrant and hose couplings.
I was going to make this point. DC fire companies arrived, and so too Philly. NYC firefighters were delayed 24 hours because of a badly timed train derailment. I believe at the time it was the country's second worst fire, after Chicago's infamous Great fire a quarter century earlier, which actually jumped the river. The San Fran fire two years after Baltimore was even worse. You can still see Dead Eyes around town.
The One South Calvert Building, across the corner behind where Johns is standing, is very important in the history of structural design. It was Baltimore's first "skyscraper" (steel-framed elevator building), and the first skyscraper in the world to survive a major fire. Its survival proved the concept of terra-cotta cladding over the steel members as fireproofing material. This was only two decades after the first skyscraper was built in Chicago, and during a boom when such buildings were under construction around the US, and in foreign countries. The building's interior was gutted, but it was refurbished and put back into service, and remains occupied today.
I remember reading about this building somewhere if it is the one originally called the Continental Trust Bldg. The one flaw with these early steel skyscrapers was the open grillwork elevator shafts. The building was supposed to be fireproof, but once the flames entered the lower floors the open shafts acted like chimneys, and the heat and flames were drawn upwards to ignite all the upper floors. This issue led to the eventual requirement of shafts being enclosed by solid walls and the outer hoistway doors also being made of solid material. I was in this building as a child around 1960 and rode one of those elevators up to the 8th floor with my older sisters who were applying for work permits. The cars were still manually operated with an attendant back then and the shafts had long been enclosed, though the elevator cars still had inner gates for the attendant to see to stop the car even with the floors.
You got me thinking of the little fire boxes in my neighborhood. There was a little box on top of maybe a 5 ft Pole. You turned the little key to notify the fire department
Cool! Wonder if any of those still exist?
@@baltimoreheritage1006 I can see they're calling them Gamewell fire alarm call boxes. Looks like people are selling them for three $400 $700 depending on condition
My grandmother was eight years old at the time of the fire and always mentioned it at this time of year.
My great grandmother Ida Bennaman watched the city in flames from Atop Federal Hill
My grandmother told me that O'Neill's department store survived the fire. Mr. O'Neill was sure that god had spared it due to his prayers and, being a staunch Catholic, Mr. O'Neill donated the money to build the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on North Charles Street.
My great Uncle William Clarke 1852-1906 was the Chief Electrical inspector for the city of Baltimore in 1904. He was in poor health at the time with TB, the family claimed that he work himself in to exhaustion after the fire and that was what killed him. He was a manage for the B&O Telegraph company in the 1880s, so he may have had a hand in the flawless operation of the telegraph system during the fire.
Thank you for sharing information about the 1904 Baltimore fire! I love finding out interesting details about topics that interest me! Well Done!
Well done very very well done!!!!!!!!
Great video
Where was president Roosevelt at??
Just a little correction. Firemen shoveled coal into a steam locomotive. Firefighters put out a fire. My pop, a 34 year veteran of the BCFD (EVD, pump operator, tiller, Lt. In the FIB) hated when people said “Fireman”.🤣
Thank you!
@@baltimoreheritage1006 but I do stand corrected as well. Pop said back in the days of steam pumpers, firemen were shoveling coal to build steam pressure for the pumps. So you are CORRECT for the time period. My apologies.
@@baltimoreheritage1006 a quick story. Pop graduated high school in ‘64 I believe. Kenwood High. Went into the Baltimore City Fire Department in ‘66. He retired in 2000. However, after 9/11, he wanted to go back in. Momma said “NO”. He’ll always be a smoke eater. He loved what he did and still misses it today. I guess if it’s in your blood, it’s your livelihood. I’ll always be proud of him.
@@rixxroxxk1620 grateful for his service!
Obviously something is wrong, when the wooden towers are still standing .
Doh
and the Bank