Fire often has held a peculiar fascination. Like a moth drawn to the flame, a crowd, too, is drawn toward glowing, leaping red-orange flames, whether from a bonfire or building inferno. Such was with the St. Patrick’s Day Bowen-Merrill Co conflagration.
A few minutes after three o’clock the afternoon of Monday, March 17, 1890, smoke and flames were discovered in the basement of the Bowen-Merrill books and stationery company, 16-18 W. Washington St. Quickly the workers evacuated the largest book establishment in the West as all four floors of the brick building were filled with suffocating smoke. When firefighters reached the scene, smoke and flames were belching from the windows as a great crowd formed on the south side of the street to witness the blaze. The initial feeble streams of water thrown on the flames by the firefighters had little effect and within 30 minutes a call had been sent out for all the city’s engines to race to the growing inferno. Because of the fire’s intensity, the firefighters could only attack the flames from the building’s exterior — front, back, and roof, several of them scrambling up ladders to the roof to direct their companions below. After two hours, the blaze gradually seemed to come under control and firefighters entered the building and began pouring streams of water on the upper floors when great black clouds of smoke and flame leaped from the fourth floor to the roof followed by a tremendous rumble of the collapsing rear wall, roof, and floors. Amid the smoldering rubble, lay dead and injured firefighters who had been carried down in the collapse.
The outpouring of shock and grief in Indianapolis and throughout the state over the tragic deaths and injuries to so many firefighters led the city’s major newspapers to establish relief funds for the nine widows and 22 orphans of the thirteen firefighters — Andrew O. Cherry, George S. Faulkner, Espy Stormer, David O. R. Lowry, Ulyssess “Uhl” G. Glazier, Henry D. Woodruff, George W. Glenn, Albert Hoffman, Anthony “Tony” Voltz, Thomas A. Black, John S. Burkhart, William F. Jones, William R. McGinnis — who died and the 15 who were injured. Today, a state historical marker commemorates the site of the disaster and the lives lost. Unfortunately, another city fire would soon claim more lives.
Less than two years later at midnight, Thursday, January 21, 1892 the Indiana Surgical Institute, home to 316 patients from various states and 30 nurses, was destroyed by fire. The four-story former business block at the northeast corner of S. Illinois and Georgia streets was a brick building with narrow halls and stairways and “no proper exits” — a “veritable fire trap.” The fire began in a second-floor room on the Georgia St. side and quickly spread; “the air was filled with screams and cries for help” from the frightened residents — men, women, and children. “Heroic deeds of rescue were performed,” but sadly 19 patients, of whom thirteen were from ages 2 to 19, “were suffocated by smoke and perished in the flames.” This fire would be recorded in Indianapolis history as the greatest loss of life.
Shortly before 10 o’clock the night of Sunday, February 19, 1905, the worst fire Indianapolis ever experienced in terms of property loss began in the wholesale district with “a sudden explosion” at Fahnley & McCrea Millinery Co, 240-42 S. Meridian St, “which shattered the windows and filled Meridian Street with smoke and sparks.” Flames quickly engulfed the block wide, five-story brick T-shaped dry goods building that extended to Louisiana St. Heavy fire walls insulated the block wide adjacent wholesale drug firm A. Kiefer & Co, 231-35 McCrea St, to the north until the blaze found a break in the protective barrier and ignited the contents of the drug house, producing a fire that was “perhaps the fiercest, and certainly the most spectacular of all, for explosion after explosion came at frequent intervals, each followed by a burst of flames and showers of sparks.” The fire swiftly spread south, engulfing the United States Express Co, 250-52 S Meridian, Savoy Hotel, 6 Louisiana St, and the Sherman House at the northeast corner of Louisiana and McCrea streets. Despite the heroic efforts of firefighters, a steady southeast wind drove the flames into Griffith Bros Millinery, 229 McCrea St, E. C. Dolmetsch Co, 228-30 S. Meridian St, and the St. Charles Hotel, 225 McCrea St, fully enveloping within an hour the entire south half of the square bounded by Louisiana and Georgia, Meridian and McCrea Streets in a firestorm.
A large crowd of spellbound spectators watched leaping flames and a mass of whirling crimson embers in great clouds of smoke fill the night sky as skyrockets and other fireworks stored in the Dolmetsch building “exploded by the hundreds, making the scene beautiful and awe-inspiring.” As brick walls swayed, succumbing to the conflagration and tumbling into the streets, there arose “a cry of horror from a thousand throats.” Fanned by a steady southeast wind, the inferno spread, an alley to the north providing a firebreak saving nearby buildings, as “sparks and burning brands for blocks” covered the downtown district with only snow-covered roofs that “proved the salvation of the city.” The following morning the smoldering ruins revealed a complete loss of buildings and stock totaling $1,070,000 (2024: $37,962,327).
While the Wholesale District fire was the most devastating loss of commercial buildings, the Industrial Building fire, Sunday evening, January 13, 1918, was the costliest in Indianapolis history to date. Occupying the block on the west bank of the Canal from Tenth to Eleventh Streets, the large four-story brick Industrial Building was the home of twenty-three manufacturing companies, “a majority of which were making machines and supplies” for the United States war effort. Of suspicious origin, the raging blaze was initially believed to have been part of a German plot because of the building’s use in the production of war materiel. Despite the freezing temperature, when firefighters arrived on the scene a little before 6:00 p.m. they augmented the water supply from large holes cut into the ice-covered Canal and began pouring many streams of water on the “mass of roaring flames” erupting from the roof and exploding from the windows. Their valiant efforts to contain the conflagration, however, were hindered by a strong southwest wind that sent glowing sparks raining down on homes and buildings in the adjoining community. Thousands of spectators gathered on the frozen Canal to watch the army of firefighters battle the inferno, but were forced to retreat to solid ground as the intense heat from the blaze melted the ice. Miraculously, no firefighter was injured as they leapt out of the way from falling walls. In addition to the Industrial Building, falling embers and intense heat from the fire destroyed six frame houses, the brick Simpson A.M.E Church, a grocery, and a saloon. Several other surrounding structures were damaged. The total loss was estimated at $2,000,000 (2024: $42,523,157).
Small and large fires in Indianapolis would continue to threaten property and lives, but the city’s well-equipped firefighters and their professionalism contained and reduced the threat of future infernos which well positioned the Indianapolis Fire Department to handle the potentially devastating November 1983 W. T. Grant fire.
