In eight hours on a Friday afternoon the city was gone. Saturday morning dawned on a city of ash, on a future to be seized.
Mere figures belie the devastation.
Seven died and more went mad. Fortunes were lost - and fortunes were to be made. It was the worst fire ever to visit a Southern city. To Charles R. Armstrong it may have seemed hell on Earth. Flames consumed the city jail the day after Armstrong shot his wife three times.