Wholesale District Fire
Indianapolis, IN
February 19, 1905
A fire that started in the wholesale millinery house of Fahrley & McCrea, on South Meredian Street, in Indianapolis, Indiana, in the early morning of February 19, 1905, wiped out eight buildings in forty-five minutes. Every fire engine in the city and surrounding suburbs responded to the three general alarms. By the time the first fire company arrived, the millinery was almost destroyed and fire began to spread to adjoining and near by buildings. The Kiefer Drug Company's building, St. Nicholas Hotel, Griffiths Brothers millinery house, Delmetsch & Co. building, United States Express Company warerooms, Sherman House, and the Savoy Hotel caught fire. The occupants of the hotels escaped without injury. The west wall of the millinery where the fire started, which faced Jackson Place, across from Union Station, fell within thirty minutes after the fire started. One firefighter received a broken leg and hundreds of spectators in front of Union Station narrowly escaped without injury. The flames spread across Louisiana Street and caught the roof of the Union Station train sheds on fire. The firemen extinguished that roof fire and saved the building. Bursts of flame and burning embers, which shot skyward as a result of explosions from chemicals in the Delmetsch and Kiefer buildings, made the fire a spectacular one. Within forty five minutes after the fire starting, eight buildings were destroyed and the firemen turned their attention to keeping the fire from spreading. The Grand Hotel, the largest hotel in Indiana, caught fire, but the flames were extinguished, with a loss of only $2,000. The total loss from the fire was estimated at $1,100,000. |
