Tag: fire
Children Clung to Their Mothers as Fire Swept Through Steamboat
Most of the passengers aboard the City of Pittsburg were still asleep when fire broke out before dawn. Within minutes, the side-wheel steamer was filling…
Film Caught Fire During a 1909 Show at West Virginia’s Bijou Theatre
Early motion picture theaters carried dangers that modern audiences rarely consider. Film stock was highly flammable, and a small spark inside the projection booth could…
Bedford’s Rich Residents Hunted Firebug After Barns Burned
In 1905, the wealthy village of Bedford, New York, found itself under siege by a firebug. Barns, homes, haystacks, and a grocery store went up…
Baltimore Mother Held Baby From Third-Floor Window as Firemen Raised Ladder
Mrs. Bessie Levin stood at a third-floor window of her burning Baltimore home with her two-month-old baby in her arms, waiting for the firemen to…
Peabody Mourns Children Lost in School Blaze
The grief in Peabody, Massachusetts, settled into the homes of twenty-one families after fire swept through St. John’s Parochial School and trapped the young girls…
Fire Wrecks St. Mary’s Industrial School
In April 1919, a devastating fire tore through St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore, leaving behind wrecked buildings, injured men, and two dead…
Women Jump From Omaha Building to Escape Flames
Women Jump From Omaha Building to Escape Flames On a March afternoon in 1899, a meeting of women in Omaha, Nebraska, turned suddenly into a…
Human Remains Found After Windsor Hotel Fire
The aftermath of a great fire is often worse than the flames themselves. Once the smoke clears, what remains is not only wreckage, but the…
Heroes and Horror in Tannersville’s Twilight Hotel Fire
In July 1926, the fashionable inn at Tannersville, New York, was destroyed by fire so completely that even counting the dead became difficult. The hotel…
