The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-11-28
ENTERPRISE IN THE RUINS.
Lynn's Business Men Began Again
Before the Ground Cooled,

Lynn's Business Men Began Again
Before the Ground Cooled.
LYNN. November 27.-There was little
sleep for those in the City of Shoes last
night. and when the morning broke it found
many people on the streets, where they had
been for 18 hours past.
The second scene in the fiery drama that
Tuesday noon had rung up the curtain upon
was far different one from the first, but
while the first had carried with it the terror
that the element Of fire can possibly portray,
the second was none the less impressive and
appalling.
Through an opaque and suffocating
blanket of smoke and steam stood the gaunt
and weird-looking relics of the business CEN
tire of the town, tall chimnies, lonesome in
their isolation. Jagged and tottering walls
and huge piles of smoking coal and leather.
1t was picture that the people of Lynn
never want to gaze upon again.
The morning had scarcely broke before the
Sightseers began to pour in from out of
town, and 1t soon became apparent that the
city was to be an even greater Mecca today
than it was yesterday. The presence of
these countless visitors added to the pOpula-
tion of the place itself tended to give an air
of liyeliness to an otherwise dispiriting
scene. The fire limits were but insufficiently
maintained and the people had abundant op-
portunity to move about the fifty acre scene
of ruin and take in the extent of the confia-
grafton. There were militiamen and police
in plenty, but many of them were weary
looking, and confined themselves chiefly to
seeing that no property was stolen, or that
the public did not encroach on dangerous
ground.
True to their reputation the business men
OF the city stopped not to waste time in de-
ploring the blow, or what might have been
done to lessen it ii thousand different
things had worked the other way, but with
out sleep and without an attempt to COM
pute their loss, even, went to work at once
to see what could be done to overcome the
disaster.
This undaunted spirit of enterprise was
manifested even at 7 o'clock this morning,
when, amid the smoke and the heat Of
smoldering embers all around them, several
firms began to put up small frame offices
on the backened sites of their former
buildings.
Safes were opened at daybreak where
they were found cold enough to be handled,
and a score of firms had placards standing in
front of their business blocks announcing
that they had opened offices in various parts
of the city.
The newspapers, as always, were the first
to assert their Phpnix-like nature, and both
the Press and Item issued morning editions,
giving comprehensive accounts of the fire.
How they did it, with all their type and
the public wondered at, and could not alto
gether understand. The Bee, too, is not a
drone on this occasion, for placarded In front
of dismantled lamp post in front OF the
smoking cellar that once was Its press room
is the following announcement "The Bee
Is humming at 81 Central avenue"
Starting from the spot where the fire origi-
mated and following the burned area around
the day, a striking and comprehensive idea
of the extent of the damage could be gained.
In the region of Central avenue and Will
low street the first force of the fame could
be appreciated. Here to the northwest of
the Boston & Maine depot, through which
self, totally dismantled almost to brick pow
der Iron safes, big and small. protruded
through the ruins, some of them being open
ed by their owners and emptied of their un-
injured contents.
Here and there appeared placard an
n0uncing the removal of some burned out
firm, and among it all moved an army OF
linemen pursuing their dangerous work of
taking down wires and half-burned poles.
Once in while the crash of big pole
would resound through the district, and there
would be frantic rush Of the crowd to get
out of harms way.
Union street was a spectacle for the gods.
The firemen were still playing upon the
ruins of b f. Spinney's big building, and on
the opposite side of the street, just back of
the depot, hopeless tangle of iron girders
level with the ground, showed where Goldth-
waite',s livery stable and Titus & Brickley's
store had been.
Inside or outside, however viewed, the
Central depot presented strange-looking
sight, There was nothing between its floor
and heaven except a canopy of iron girders,
and its walls were blackened and scorched
from top to bottom.
Standing in the square and looking east
up Exchange street, thick pail of smoke
and steam greeted the gaze. Through this
the workers and morbidly curious felt theiI
way and came upon scene that transcended
even the other one
A forest, of chimneys, sections of brick
walls, and rusty engines and boilers stood
between here and the water front, and told
in silent eloquence how furious had been
the fire when it leaped across Union street
Everything was gone. and nothing but acres
of waste and ruin remained.
On Exchange street only portion of the
wall OF what was once the handsome build
ing occupied by Amos F. Breed, the Davis
Shoe Company and other concerns remained