The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1904-02-28
FROM THE
FIRE AT BALTIMORE.
Costly Continental Trust Building and How 1t Met the Ordeal
lem.

Baltimore. Feb. Els there such 8
thing as a f~rcproof building?
Popular opinion long ago answered no
The builders yea mas grown stronger each
year.
With the coming of the modern sky
scrapors. great steel skeletons sheathed
walls. the experts claimed absolute i'm
munity from ire loss. The public remained
skeptical.
The destruction of property and loss OF
life in the old-style absolutely. fire-proof"
Buildings were too fresh in the memory.
Tho Few construction had never been put
to the test.
But the supreme test of all that con-
s:rrCtive science has accomplished came
last month in Baltimore.
no trial OF the resisting power of the
n ere complete.
By the rime the path of flame, whipped
ress heart of the city there was no power
to check it other than the great monu-
ments OF financial power which have
marked Baltimore's progress in the last
five years.
AS the devouring sea of fire swept on
from the warehouse district. crumbling
granite foundations as If they were plas-
ter, Baltimoreans looked to the great Cal
vert. Equitable and Union Trust buildings
to stem the tide.
Water and dynamite, the fire fighters
less. Dynamite not only failed to clear a
path big enough to give the fire a pause,
by in some instances actually helped the
fire by break'ng the windows of the tall
that drew the flames and turned the in
terror into immense furnaces tina scat
tered deadly firebrands before the gale.
BAFFLED BY THE SKY-SCRAPER.
SQuareiy in the center of the fires path,
at the corner of Calvert and Baltimore
streets, stands the Continental Trust
building. the attest and most modern edi-
fee in the city.
1t is sixteen stories high. built on a
steel frame and faced above the two lower
brick.
The floors are on ncncombustible thing
and cement. On the opposite corner stood.
and Strange to say. still stands, the little
one-s;ory red brick Colonial clearinghouse
of Alexander Brown.
The fire. as If disdaining to stop for this
little bank. made a tremendous, direct on
slausht on the skyscraper.
Into every window sprang the flames,
seemed like one vast chimney of fire. hurl-
ing heavy burning embers OF the defense
less buildings under its lee.
No one doubted for an instant that the
building itself would fall. a mass of twist
ed iron and bricks. In fact. the press dis
patches told the story of its annihilation.
but WEei morning OaWIieu the great
Continental Trust stood guarding the 5000
0G1.G0 il its vaults as deiiantly as it did
before an enemy swept over and through
1t. Every particle of woodwork and fur
niture Of its luxuriously appointed offices
had disappeared. but. with the exception
of a few OF the outer bricks that peeled
from the rear walls. the building itself
was apparently as sound as the day it
was built.
As soon as the steel girders had cooled
sufficiently to allow the use of instru-
meuts. a representative of the architect
AND of the company that furnished the
steel work found that not a floor was
structurally damaged and that every beam
and girder had held its own without warp
ing.
The cream-colored fireproof bricks of the
facade showed no trace /of the battle.
Major Ramsay of the american Bridge |
Company, after a careful inspection of the
building, said 1t could he restored at Il
cost of not higher than 10 per cent of its
original cost. A New York builder put
the salvage at 50 per cent.