New Orleans, Louisiana Fires
April
3, 1892
ACRES OF RAVAGE.
BIG BLAZE IN THE COTTON BALES
Two Little Children Burned Alive and Three
Firemen Injured, Two Perhaps Fatally.
Four Cotton Presses and 63,000 Bales Burned –
The Cigarette Does This Work – The Woman With
the Coal Oil Can Starts the Others, and the
Result Is 185 Houses Reduced to Ashes – Scores
of Families Homeless – Total Loss About
$3,000,000.
NEW ORLEANS, April 4. – The two largest
fires ever known in New Orleans broke out almost
simultaneously yesterday morning, destroying
eleven squares of buildings, 63,000 bales of
cotton and over $3,000,000 in property. Both
fires were the result of carelessness and the
great destruction was due to long drought, the
dry condition of houses, cotton, etc. The strong
breeze that was blowing and the insufficient
size of the fire department, which was
reorganized in January from the volunteer to the
pay system, reducing the force to about
one-tenth its former size, contributed to the
spread of the conflagration. Besides the men had
not become thoroughly accustomed to their new
duties and were greatly overworked by two big
fires.
Work of the Fatal Cigarette.
The first fire began at 10 a. m. in some cotton
stored on the pavement in front of the Fireproof
cotton press at Robin and Front streets. It is
not unusual to allow cotton to be stored, but
the stock on hand here just now is so large,
over 500,000 bales, that the law was relaxed.
Some one carelessly threw a lighted cigarette
among the cotton. It smoldered, and finally
burst into a blaze. The fire was a very small
one at first, but the cotton was so dry that it
spread rapidly. The flames in an incredibly
short space of time communicated to the press,
eating their way through the woodwork and down
into the body of the press.
Three Firemen Seriously Hurt.
The flames next caught on the Shippers’ press in
which there were 30,000 bales, and in half an
hour it was licked up. The Orleans press
containing 25,000 bales and the Independent
press with 8,000 bales, were the next victims.
Then the fireman gave up trying to save the old
presses and they all went up in smoke and
flames. The firemen made a desperate attempt to
check the fire at the New Orleans press. They
were working hard at it when the walls fell in,
burying three fireman in the ruins,
Captain Dupree, Lieutenant
Shaw and Pipeman Bordeaux. The two
last were seriously if not fatally injured.
Five Squares of Flames.
By this time the fire extended five squares in
length, and communicated to a number of houses,
barrooms, stores, etc. it produced a panic, and
people for four or five squares around commenced
moving out their furniture. The air was filled
with wisps of blazing cotton, which threatened
roofs everywhere. The Baldwin Agricultural
works, three squares away, and the Louisiana
rice mills, four squares away, were set on fire,
but the flames were extinguished. Fortunately
the section in which the cotton presses are
located contains few large houses and many
vacant lots, so that after the presses and the
cotton were burned the fire died out chiefly for
want of fuel.
List of the Presses Destroyed.
The presses destroyed were as follows:
Fireproof, Penrose
Brothers, managers, South Front and Robin
streets; Shippers, Boyd
& Herrick, proprietors, South Peters
street; Independence Cotton Yard, South Peters
street; Orleans Cotton press,
Adam Lorch,
manager, South Peters street. In these presses
63,000 bales of cotton were burned. The loss on
the cotton at $35 a bale is $2,222,500. The
presses were worth $750,000. Other property
valued at $30,000 was destroyed, including 18
horses, bring the total loss up to $3,022,500.
The Fireproof press was the property of the
Seventh Street Orphan Asylum and the Shippers’
press of the Charity hospital. The presses and
cotton were fully insured.
THE SECOND FIRE BREAKS OUT.
A Woman Starts a Stove With Coal Oil and Burns
Two Children.
While the firemen were fighting the cotton fire
an alarm was given of another at Laurel and
Third street, about twelve blocks away.
Mrs. Valentine
was preparing her dinner, and used coal oil to
start the stove. The oil caught fire and
communicated to the house. Like the other it was
a small affair at first, and it was half an hour
before it communicated to the other houses, but
once it got headway it swept rapidly down Laurel
street. It was difficult to get engines at
first, for they were all fighting the blazing
cotton presses. When they came they were able to
do very little. The supply of water was short
and the men worn out, while to make matters
worse a stiff breeze was blowing.
Poor People’s Cottages the Fuel.
The locality in which the fire started is built
up entirely of frame cottages, occupied by poor
people. The houses were dry from the long
drought, and the flames spread from one to the
other so fast that in a couple of hours, they
had crossed Third and Second streets, finally
reaching First street. They spread backwards,
also crossing Laurel street and burning up three
blocks between that and Constance street,
crossing the latter at First and Second streets
and sweeping everything before it to Magazine
street. The fire was then held in check, and
although it crossed the street and destroyed
some houses on the other side it was
extinguished there.
Over Half a Million Wiped Out.
The flames had spread from the poorer to a
better residence portion of the city, burning in
all 185 houses and property to the amount of
$500,000 to $600,000. A large portion of the
furniture and household goods in the burned
district was saved. For a time it looked as
though the fire would cross First and Magazine
streets, the two widest in that part of the
city. If it had done so there would have been
nothing to have stopped it for a dozen squares.
The fire caused somewhat of a panic and there
was a general fear that New Orleans was going to
have a Chicago fire.
Two Children Burned to Death.
In the house of the woman who started the fire
were two little girls, her daughters. The
exploding coal oil scattered over the little
ones, and they were both burned alive. The
mother is on the verge of insanity.
Out in the Open Streets.
More that 100 families are suddenly rendered
homeless and it was a pitiful sight to see
weeping mothers, with their helpless little ones
clinging to them, gazing at the mass of embers
that was once their happy homes. So incredibly
rapid was the work of the flames that few
families saved anything from their residences,
many barely escaping with their lives.
Syndicate Had a Close Call.
All the cotton presses except the Shippers’ were
purchased Saturday by and English syndicate
whose purpose it was to take charge of them at
one, but the actual transfer had not been made.
The loss, therefore, does not fall on the
syndicate. There is an insurance of $3,300,000
on the $3,600,000 loss.
Davenport Daily Leader, Davenport, IA 4
Apr 1892
Transcribed by
Jenni Lanham. Thank you,
Jenni!
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