KNOXVILLE, TN: May 5, 1906 – Fire started at midnight in the Commerce Building on Gay Street, just north of Vine Avenue. Firemen battled the conflagration for 1½ hours, but had yet to slow its spread. Companies struggled to place hose streams in position to protect other businesses.
ELIZABETH, NJ: May 5, 1906 – Just after 1 o’clock in the morning, a fire broke out in the Atlantic & Pacific tea store on Broad Street. Flames quickly spread to the Alpine Dairy next door, then to Parson’s Dry Goods and finally to the YMCA building on Jersey Street. The entire fire department battled the flames for 1½ hours before bringing things under control.
LEROY, NY: May 9, 1906 – Assemblyman Percy Hooker was helping firemen extinguish a blaze in a hardware store when an acetylene plant in the cellar exploded. The store’s front windows were blasted out, sending glass shards flying into the street and injuring the assemblyman and several firemen. The post office, a jewelry store and a saloon were also damaged.
NEW YORK CITY: May 9, 1906 – A collision on the Third Avenue elevated subway line in Manhattan left one car hanging from the structure in flames. The car was dangling, in danger of falling to the street below, when Engine 21 arrived. Foreman Fox and Fireman Conlon crawled into the burning car and extricated a trapped passenger. Both firefighters were placed on the Roll of Merit for their heroic actions.
PARIS, FRANCE: May 11, 1906 – The huge leather market in the Gobelins district of the city was swept by flames during the night. Firemen faced repeated explosions of carboys (large glass containers) filled with acid. More than 2,000 barrels of oil helped fuel the blaze. Several firemen were injured when walls collapsed during operations.
PITTSBURGH, PA: May 11, 1906 – A blast furnace at the Jones & Laughlin Company on Second Avenue exploded, sending a cloud of cinders and ash into the afternoon sky. Some of the blazing cinders were as large as baseballs and settled across neighborhood roofs, keeping a half-dozen engine companies busy extinguishing spot fires.
NEW ROCHELLE, NY: May 11, 1906 – As an audience of 2,000 sat under a big tent watching the trapeze act of the Robbin’s Circus when a gasoline explosion set the tent on fire. A panic swept the audience and a number of women and children were trampled as they fled the blazing structure. The fire department responded and extinguished the burning tent.
TRENTON, NJ: May 12, 1906 – A difficult fire in the New Jersey Pulp Plaster Company took two hours to control. During overhauling, a company moved into the cellar to extinguish a hot spot when the floor above them collapsed. Tons of concrete, wood timbers and other materials crashed down on the company trapping two firemen, Charles Howell and Frank Riley. The other two firemen on the hose barely escaped and helped in the rescue effort. It took three hours to dig out both men who had perished in the collapse.
GULFPORT, MS: May 13, 1906 – The enormous plant of the New Orleans Naval Stores Company was destroyed by a fire that spread across the six-acre site. Resin yards, warehouses, a commissary and storage rooms were all lost to the flames. The loss was calculated at nearly a half-million dollars.
ESCANABA, MI: May 19, 1906 – This entire section of Michigan had been battling a series of forest fires when a conflagration began and swept through the town. Four people were known dead and hundreds were homeless as the fire spread to other nearby communities. The towns destroyed were Talbot and Quinnesec, MI, and Saunders and Niagara, WI. Numerous other towns were also damaged.
Paul Hashagen, a Firehouse® contributing editor, is a retired FDNY firefighter who was assigned to Rescue Company 1 in Manhattan. He is also an ex-chief of the Freeport, NY, Fire Department. Hashagen is the author of FDNY 1865-2000: Millennium Book, a history of the New York City Fire Department, and other fire service history books.
