LOOKING BACK 1925: Fire threatens Allegany Hospital
On March 30, 1925, someone struck a match. By itself, not an act worth noting. It happened thousands of times a day in Cumberland, MD, back then. This person lit his cigarette or maybe a pipe and then gave the match a quick shake so that the flame would go out. Then he tossed the spent match aside. This is one possible explanation for the beginning of what happened that day, but not the only one. No one knows who lit what with what and then threw it aside. All that is known is that a match or something else on fire fell down a waste chute and that it wasn’t extinguished. The flames ignited a pile of paper and cloth at the bottom of the chute in the furnace room. Those flames smoldered, sending smoke up through the metal-lined Read more…
Lonaconing, Md., was a phoenix rising from ashes of a devastating fire
It was a summer for Lonaconing in 1881. Even with the changing of the months from August to September and cooling temperatures, it hadn’t rained for four weeks. P.T. Tully and Co.’s store was on the east side of Main Street. On Sept. 7, Mr. Hanlon, one of the store’s employees, was sitting down to a lunch with his family that would never be finished because a fire broke out in the stable behind the store. The fire found fertile ground among the blowing wind, dry conditions and wooden structure. It moved to the store and then the flames began sweeping north along Main Street until there were no more buildings to consume and south to Bridge Street. The last building to burn was the Merchants’ Hotel, kept by William Atkinson, who also kept a store adjoining the hotel. With Read more…
The morning Oakland burned (part 2)
Note: This is the second of two articles about the Great Oakland Fire of 1898. As a fire rampaged through Oakland, Md., during the morning of July 12, 1898, the townspeople had formed a bucket brigade to fight the fire. The fire department had a chemical engine that was also being used to try to put out the fire. It was overwhelming, and Oakland Mayor R. S. Jamison telegraphed Mayor George A. Kean of Cumberland for help. Kean promised to send a fire company, but that help would be hours away. Jamison’s message may have been one of the last to get out of Oakland before the fire burned down three telegraph poles, taking the wire with it. A correspondent with the Warren (Pa.) Democrat had been transmitting a story to the newspaper when he had lost communications. The message read, Read more…
The morning Oakland burned (part 1)
Note: This is the first of two articles about the Great Oakland Fire of 1898. Robert Shirer woke up from a deep sleep the morning of July 12, 1898, when the sound of a whistle and church bell wouldn’t stop. When he opened his eyes, wondering what the reason for the noise was, he saw that his bed was on fire and some of his room. He jumped from his bed and ran out of the burning building with only his nightclothes on. It was a narrow escape that left him with slight burns. Outside, it appeared as if all of Oakland was on fire. I.L. Haught, a clerk at the Oakland Pharmacy, had been the first person to see the fire that morning. Like Shirer, he had been asleep, but he came awake much earlier than usual because of Read more…
Looking Back 1957: Fire engine catches fire for second time in a year
Hull Disert was a fireman with Friendship Fire Company so he knew the smell of smoke. Though it was lunchtime, this was not the smell of burnt food. This smell was more pungent and it was coming from the truck bay. A fire station was not a place where there should be smoke. As Disert walked into the bay, he heard a popping sound. His attention focused on the 1952 American Fire Apparatus 500-gallon pumper truck. Suddenly he knew exactly what the smell was because he had smelled it earlier in the year. He saw that smoke was filling up the cab of the fire truck. “He promptly cut the battery cable of the apparatus, extinguishing the smoldering fire,” reported the Public Opinion in 1957. An investigation showed that insulation that touched a wire leading from the cold side of Read more…
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