The Maryland State Quarter Coin remembers the huge Baltimore fire that began on February 7, 1904.
From the Insurance Times of February 1904:
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[Special Correspondence]
BALTIMORE. MD, February 19, 1904.
The great fire of February 7 and 8 was the greatest calamity of the kind that ever visited Baltimore, the next largest having been that of 1872, which destroyed a large amount of property in the vicinity of Clay street and Park avenue and caused considerable loss.
It was known as the “Clay street fire,” and marked an epoch in the city’s history.
But all previous occurrences of this nature must now be relegated to the rear, and let us hope that the big fire of Sunday, February 7, will ever remain in local chronicles the most important.
Over 2,400 buildings, large and small, were destroyed, covering seventy-four acres of ground, located in the heart of the business section, and the loss is variously estimated from $75,000,000 to $125,000,000.
The blaze spread with unprecedented rapidity, converting large warehouses, stone structures, skyscrapers, banks. churches, newspaper offices and other edifices, including hotels, into ashes in an almost incredible space of time.
In twelve hours what had been the center of a busy city was converted into a scene as ruined as the precincts of ancient Palmyra or a Babylon.
The fire had its lessons. It was clearly demonstrated that the penny-wise and pound-foolish policy of hesitating to dynamite untouched buildings in blocks adjacent to a large fire, in order to prevent the spread of the flames. caused the development of the tremendous blaze and thereby ruined whole squares of costly structures.
Dynamite was used in destroying buildings adjoining burning structures, but with the lamentable effect of causing the spread rather than the decrease of the fire.
In fact this kind of dynamiting caused the more rapid spread of the conflagration.
So-called fireproof buildings were wiped out like tinder by the flames, causing ridicule throughout the community.
The skyscrapers were all gutted, every one of them, including the Continental, Maryland, Union, Calvert, Equitable, Herald and Merchants’ Bank Building, but remaining intact in the air as far as their framework is concerned.
It was shown that this class of buildings does not spread the flames to adjoining structures. it may be said that the building experts say the greater number of these buildings need not come down, which means that from fifty to seventy-five percent of their value may be saved, a circumstance of note to the insurance men.
On the other hand a number of large buildings not built on the steel-frame skyscraper plan will prove total losses.
Notable buildings which fell a prey to the flames were the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad‘s big central office building and the Chamber of Commerce building, both strong and lofty buildings, constructed on the old plan of erection, and deemed impregnable to the flames.
But it appeared that no kind of building could resist the all conquering flames.
The firemen worked nobly under the direction of Chief Horton, receiving valuable assistance from the fire laddies of New York, Washington, York, Philadelphia, Westminster, Atlantic City, and other places.
Too much praise cannot be bestowed on the visiting firemen, who did great service in staying the flames.
The New Yorkers performed particularly good work along the water front, and to them is largely due the saving of the wharves of the Norfolk Line and the final stoppage of the conflagration.
One beneficial feature of the fire will be the total banishment of gasoline from the city’s business section as a motive power for engines, the disappearance of a number of old ramshackle firetraps, and of some narrow thoroughfares which will now be widened.
In addition there may be one or more public squares laid out where some of the blocks once were situated, thus insuring greater safety from fire losses to the public and the insurance men.
A peculiar feature of the fire was that a large majority of the best known fire and life agents were rendered homeless in a business sense by the blaze, which swept the insurance quarter from end to end.
The fire insurance men have opened headquarters at the Royal Arcanum Building, Saratoga street. near Charles, where daily sessions have been held and the status of the losses discussed and figures tabulated.
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It is the consensus of opinion here among insurance men that few fires of modern times have been more destructive than the recent one which visited this city.
The fact that the fire reached what was thought to be the impossible locally rendered the surprise felt here the more emphatic.
Not only the firemen, but every agency of a human character appeared to be impotent in the face of the devouring element.
With one accord insurance men, architects, builders, building mechanics are lost in amazement over the results, and it will take time, tabulation, comparison, to reach the real effects of the conflagration, to estimate the real loss, which is not only financial but moral.
It is agreed that the fire means the entire change of fire methods here and elsewhere, and that a general smashing of hobbies and building myths will result.
The “fireproof” structure has gone to oblivion along with other fetishes and modern fables.
Modern man has once more learned that against the forces of nature he is as much a pigmy as was his primeval ancestor in the jungle.
It was illustrated that while the constructive ability and the ingeniousness of man was great, he is hampered by materials which are unable to arrest or to withstand one of the chief elements of nature.
Brick alone, and that mainly old-time kiln-burnt brick, the product of our grandfathers, was the only thing that proved effective and withstood the awful heat of Baltimore’s fire.
The strong brick buildings, many of them of a past generation, stood well the march of the flames, while the skyscrapers and other structures which were marvels of apparent solidity and impregnability, in stone, iron, bronze and steel, collapsed like toy houses.
The skyscrapers of fire proof character were all destroyed, and stand to-day like vast chimneys, blackened and grim.
They burned like torches, but showed that they could be relied upon not to spread flames and to burn within solely. All of them are standing, and nearly all of them are not damaged sufficiently to warrant demolition.
Their interiors, however, are completely gutted, and not a thing is evident but the burned interior of the several rooms, which appear cell-like in guise.
In most cases the architects have given opinions that these buildings need not be torn down, and that their steel structural matter is intact and not badly damaged by the heat.
Architect D. H. Burnham of Chicago has examined the big fourteen-story Continental Building, and has decided that it is substantial and can be restored safely.
The interior is entirely gone. The saving by the fact that the structure need not be demolished will be at least fifty percent.
All of the other skyscrapers are in a similar condition, and none of them will have to be removed.
There is a strong sentiment here in favor of the establishment of a central pumping station for the purpose of supplying water to the fire department in case of fires.
Such a central power-house would enable the firemen to combat fires with more chances of success. In the recent fire the water supply was very inadequate in volume and force, and the engines were too small to contend with such conditions.
The big five-and-a-half and six-ton engines from New York did splendid work and demonstrated their superiority beyond question.
Fireproof building has received in one way a setback by the fire. and yet in another way it has not.
If all buildings in the fire area of the city had been fireproof the fire would not have spread so.
The moral is, therefore, that all buildings in a locality should be fireproof, and not a few, in order to secure safety from large conflagrations.
A few fireproof structures in a locality are manifestly unable to stand before fires caused by the close proximity of a number of combustible and non fireproof structures, the heat from which would equal a blast furnace in power.
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The Maryland State Quarter Coin shows with an image of Baltimore Street west of St. Paul after the fire in 1904.
