Great Fire of 1901
![]() Map of the Great Fire of 1901 that destroyed Downtown Jacksonville | |
Date | May 3, 1901 |
---|---|
Location | Jacksonville, Florida |
Outcome | 2,367 structures destroyed 7 killed |
The Great Fire of 1901 was a
Fire
Origin
In 1901, Jacksonville was a city which consisted mainly of wooden buildings with wood shingled roofs. The city itself had been suffering under a prolonged drought,[2] leaving the building exteriors across the city dry and fire-prone. At around noon on Friday, May 3, 1901, workers at the Cleaveland Fibre Factory, located on the corner of Beaver and Davis Streets, left for lunch. Several minutes later, sparks from the chimney of a nearby building started a fire in a pile of Spanish moss that had been laid out to dry. First, factory workers tried to put it out with a few buckets of water, as they had frequently done on similar occasions.[3] However, the blaze was soon out of control due to the wind picking up out of the east.[4] A brisk northwest wind fanned the flames, which "spread from house to house, seemingly with the rapidity that a man could walk".[2]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8c/Forsyth-st-ruins.jpg/250px-Forsyth-st-ruins.jpg)
In eight hours, the fire burned 146 city blocks, destroyed more than 2,367 buildings, and left almost 10,000 residents homeless. It is said the glow from the flames could be seen in Savannah, Georgia, and the smoke plumes in Raleigh, North Carolina.[5]
James Weldon Johnson, principal of a local school claimed, however, that firemen tried to save the fire from spreading to a white neighborhood, allowing black parts of town to burn down in the process:
"We met many people fleeing. From them we gathered excitedly related snatches: the fiber factory catches afire - the fire department comes - fanned by a light breeze, the fire is traveling directly east and spreading out to the north, over the district where the bulk of Negroes in the western end of the city live - the firemen spend all their efforts saving a low row of frame houses just across the street on the south side of the factory, belonging to a white man named Steve Melton."[6]
Aftermath
Florida Governor
Reconstruction
New York City architect
See also
- Hotel Roosevelt fire: costly 1963 fire in downtown Jacksonville
- History of Jacksonville, Florida
- List of historic fires
Notes
- ^ Davis, Ennis (October 20, 2009). "The Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901". Metro Jacksonville. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ^ a b Kerr, Jessie-Lynne (May 2, 1999). "Like the Phoenix, Jacksonville Rose from the Ashes after the Great Fire". The Florida Times Union. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ^ "The Fire!". The Great Fire of Jacksonville: An Artistic Description of a Gloomy Affair. University of Florida Library. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
- ^ Foley, Bill; Wood, Wayne W. (2001). The Great Fire of 1901. Published by The Jacksonville Historical Society, Jacksonville, FL
- ^ Davis, T. Frederick (1925). History of Jacksonville Florida and Vicinity 1513 to 1924. Florida Heritage Collection: The Florida Historical Society. p. 227.
- ^ Davis, Ennis (February 10, 2014). "10 Facts About Jacksonville's Black History". Metro Jacksonville. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
- ^ "Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901". Florida Memory. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
- ^ Penland, Dolly (March 30, 2007). "Dyal-Upchurch – then and now". Jacksonville Business Journal. Retrieved December 14, 2009.
- ^ Wood, Wayne. "Jacksonville's Architectural Heritage, Dyal-Upchurch Building". Archived from the original on September 25, 2009. Retrieved December 14, 2009.
- ^ Davis, Ennis (August 4, 2010). "A Jacksonville Landmark: Prairie School Architecture". Metro Jacksonville. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
External links
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