The Satisfying Story of the "Burnt District"

As I stated in my introductory blog, the true agruemental questions, when researching the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, are "Should the fire be thought upon as a great disaster or should the fire be thought upon as a great outcome that came about through a great disaster?" or "Was the outcome of the fire worth the physical and emotional turmoil?", but before I explain the outcome of the rebuilding of the city I first wanted to explain the interactions of Baltimore's citizens of 1904 during the thirty hour fire.

I wanted to find in my research specifically how different spectators throughout the city felt at that current time. Upon my research, I was able to retrive a journal or autobiography of an anonymous "participant" called Two Febrauary Days 24 Years Ago Stand Out in Memory courtesy of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. This participant stated in her journal that, "Never was the community spirit more strongly in evidence. Men and women helped each other to move. Big trust companies opened their vaults and men who lacked faith in their own safes shoveled in money and securities by the millions of dollars, and got them all back intact when things cooled off. Jewelers did the same thing and thanked their lucky stars afterward". This excerpt clearly illistrates the trust and honesty of the citizens during this period.

Another example of the faith between one another, during the fire, is from the same reading. The particpant was in the presence of Mr. Putts, a man who owned the store J. W. Putts and Company on the corner of Fayette and Charles Streets, when he was asked by city offcials if they could dynamite his store. Mr. Putts is quoted as simply replying, "Sure. Blow it up if it will do any good!". When the owner was informed that he may lose insurance if it is destroyed he then replied, "Never mind the insurance."

I was able to find many other journal entries both at the Enoch Pratt Free Library and the Maryland Historical Society Library, due to the anniversary stories that the Baltimore Sun published each year, during the months of February and March. I chose four clippings that explained, greatly, successful stories that were able to be proudly explained due to the conflagation.

The first article was called "I remember When... At age 12 I covered the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904" and it was published on March 8, 1959. The article was about how the writer, E. Ridgely Simpson, was the youngest newspaper reporter to cover the first big fire. Simpson already had a paper out called Boy's Home Journal and he charged 5 cents a copy (The Baltimore Sun in 1904 only cost 1 cent), but it wasn't until he covered the story of Great Fire of 1904 that his paper became known amongst his neighborhood.
    Once Simpson heard the news about how Fireman McGlennen died (One of the firefighters that had passed away from pneumonia) He decided to take up a collection for the lost firefighters family through Boy's Home Journal. The Baltimore Sun's article then lists the names of the people who donated and how much they donated. Once counted there were around seventy participants, all donating any amounts from 20 cents to 3 dollars. The grand total was $31.66. According to the Consumer Price Index, this amount would be equaled to $789.86 in 2008.

The second article that I photocopied was called "I remember... Riding Into the Great Fire of 1904" and was published in 1965. The month is unknown. The article was about how Alethea E. Foreacre was the only passenger on the trolley that rode right into the heart of the fire. The article further explains how helpful and caretaking the dispatchers of the trolley were, when taking Foreacre for a five mile walk back to her house in Federal Hill, for she was only ten years old at the time, and the trolley was coming from North Ave. Foreacre also explains how her family benefited from the fire. Her father was one of the engineers who were in charge of bringing the horses and engines to Baltimore from Washington. When describing how the engineers of that period in time were so efficient she concludes, "He brought them by rail- and he brought them in 38 minutes, better time than you can make today."

The third article is called "I Remember... Picture Postcards of the Great Fire". It was published on February 2, 1975, and was a very interesting artice about how Henry F. Rinn's father benefted from the fire by taking photographs and publishing them on postcards, then selling them to others, who would then send the cards across country to family members. Rinn explains in his article, "He sent them off to Milwaukee, and in a little more than a week he had stacks of souvenir postcard pictures of the fire to sell. He sold all he had in stock, and continued to reorder for years."

The fourth article was a very humourous one starting with the title being, "Boy Got a Thrashing for Visiting the Fire" the author Russell Phillips then goes on to explain that the thrashing was "the finest thrashing I ever had!" Even though the fire earned Phillips a thrashing it earned his father a very large profit. His father, Vivian Phillips, was an idependent tugboat captain that towed "steamers" down to Canton Flats during the fire. Russell frther explains in the article how busy his father was during the thirty hour fire:

"So my father called up to them and said, 'That other bird is pulling you back into dock.' Well the captain chopped the hawser, and my father towed that steamer down to Canton Flats. I think he made $15,000 on that one, and then he came back and got some more.... He made $25,000 that day."

According to the Consumer Price Index, $25,000 in the year of 1904 is equivilant to $623,705.10 in the year of 2008.

In addition to the journals that I found while researching the city’s libraries, I came a across a website for a contracting company, called Mullan Contracting Company, that started during the fire and is still currently established here, In Baltimore, today. The story can be found, in detail, at the website below.

http://www.mullancontr.com/index.asp?pageid=41

It was a remarkable story to read about the founder of the company who, at the time before the fire, owned a milk hauling company on Greenmount Ave. Because of the city’s demand for companies of reconstruction, the founder of the company decided to turn his milk hauling company into a company that hauled most of the debris of the fire out of the city by horse and wagon.

I found it very interesting when reading the company’s mission statement which says, “[Our mission is] to ensure that our individual contribution to the process is one that enhances our client’s enjoyment and reward by creating a quality building product on their behalf”. In my opinion this same statement was probably the around the same mission statement that citizens of Baltimore City had when reconstructing the city, after the great fire.

The Picture Above was retrieved from the Royal Blue Book issued in March of 1904.

When explaining the accounts of the outcome of the Great Baltimore Fire one would have to discuss how the B & O Railroad played a significant role in the rebuilding of the city during and after the conflagration. During the first night of the fire, newspaper companies were faced with the dilemma of having a great story for their publications, but not having a building left to publish the issues. As I stated in the beginning of my second post, there were four newspaper companies destroyed and the Baltimore Herald was one of the publications that faced that dilemma. According to the Wikipedia- the Free Encyclopedia, the Baltimore Herald was printed the first night of the fire at the Washington Post in exchange for the Baltimore Herald to give photos of the blaze to the Washington Post, but once the publishers of the Washington Post recognized that there had already been a previous agreement with the Baltimore Evening News, the Washington Post then explained that they couldn’t agree to any further terms with the Baltimore Herald. The Baltimore Herald then agreed to terms with the Philly Evening Telegraph to have the Baltimore Herald printed nightly on Philadelphia’s press for the next five weeks.

Now the B & O Railroad plays a significant role in the newspaper’s quandaries, because the railroad was the system, in both cases, that transported the newspaper into Baltimore City each morning, in time for the sunrise, and because of Baltimore’s connections with the railroad system, all transportation during the free was free of charge.

All Newspaper clippings that I came across of the Baltimore Herald issued on February 8, 1904 were not in any condition to post onto my blog. Instead I offer a copy below of the Baltimore Sun issued on the day after the great fire.

After the thirty hour fire, it’s not so hard to believe that the citizens of Baltimore City, might have pessimistic thoughts of how quickly the city would rebuild itself. Large companies, banks, and skyscrapers were destroyed inside and out. Few homes were destroyed, but 35,000 people were unemployed. Affectionate requests to give money and help were made by many surrounding cities, but were soon sent away my Mayor McLane, and the first step to restoring the city was to form the Citizens Relief Committee.

    The Citizens Relief Committee was formed with the group of twenty nine people, including Mayor McLane, and six additional people for the executive committee. The Link below shows the specific indivuals who started the committee.

According to the General Collections from the Library of Congress

The first meeting was held on February 13, 1904, four days after the fire. The committe met in the reception room of the city hall, that is still standing today, in order to come up with a report in order to confirm that there will be a transformation. In addition to forming a report, in which the committee was able to adopt within several days, the committee was granted $23,000.00, from the state through the requests of the Relief Fund Commission, under the conditions that they were to employ the best citizens for relieving the needs of other citizens,and  to pay out to the indiviuals of the Maryland National Guard who were called during the fire.

The reports that the committee formed came about to be known as the Burnt District Reports and they were apporved by the state of Maryland and set forth on March 11, 1904. All of the literature can be found at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, but it is also offered online courtesy of the library, for it is much easier to read in the link below.

BURNT DISTRICT REPORTS

In Summary the reports cover all of the following ideas:

• To define the duties and powers of each indiviual of the committee.
• To regulate the methods of procedure within the committee.
• To clarify the ectent of the said district.
• To provide for opening, extending, widening, straightening, and closing streets, lanes, and alleys.
• To establish public squares and market spaces.
• To plan and build lines and widths of sidewalks.
• To add or extend partly filling harbors and basins.
• To establish public wharfes and docks.
• To propriate a portion of the general sinking fund of Baltimore and other moneys for purposes of the stated above actions.

The committe started renovations as soon as the reports were approved and below are some examples of the approved renovations.

The image below is looking North on Charkes Street, days after the fire, on the intersection of Charles and Lombard Streets. This image was retrieved from Baltimore Afire by Harold A. Williams

Now the image below is looking down from the same intersection, only two years later, but with a great example of how the committee widened the streets.

Here are other examples below of the same examples of widened sidewalks and streets, but the images photographed looking downBaltimore Street.

While researching the reconstruction procedures  of the "Burt District", in the Enoch Pratt Free Library, I came acrosss an interesting article that was issued in August of 1906. The article was called "Baltimore Homecoming", but the newspaper that printed the issue is unknown. The article was inviting  former citizens of Baltimore, from across the entire country to come home to Baltimore in order to celebrate the renovations of the city. There article states, " The 'Homecoming' is for the purpose of showing off the new city, rebuilt since the great fire in February, 1904. With many of the old buildings burned there were also many foggy ideas, and the new ideas are in line with the energies displayed by the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of the present generation....Since February 7, 1904, 600 new buildings at an estimated cost of $25,000,000." The article also describes how Baltimore City has benefited from the fire stating, "Wholesale trade has increased about 50 per cent, and merchants are coming here to buy goods who never bought in Baltimore before." Perhaps due to the amount of publicity that the fire recieved, merchants chose to buy from Baltimore in order to build it's economy.

There was an another article that I retrieved form the Maryland Historical Library titled "A Greater City Rises From the Ashes". The article was issued on January 1954, and again the company who issued the article is unknown, but the article covers most of the statistical data that describes specicfically the amount of growth recieved after the fire.

The first graph below describes the population growth of the metropolitan Baltimore from 1900- 1953 and the second graph describes the baltimore bank clearings from 1904- 1953.

Very sigificant increases in growth.