The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1917-05-23

said, chat there is no chance of it's
having been incendiary. 1t started
from small fire and was swept along
III the teeth of wind that blew al
most with the force of gale. l knew
at 3 o'clock this afternoon that we
were going to lose a great many
houses"
City Equal to Occasion.
Mayor Gambler declared that Allan
ta could take care of it's homeless and
that while the many offers of outside
help were appreciated that it would
be unnecessary to take advantage of
them. In this he was joined by lead
ing members of the Chamber of Com
merce.
All officials agreed that a great deal
of relief work would have to be done
tomorrow.
An emergency fund was started to-
night and it was announced that a
meeting would be held tomorrow to
! further the relief work. One of the
first subscriptions reported to the
ruff, local capitalist
The fire started in an abscurc ne
gro section of the city at Decatur
street just east of Fort street this
| afternoon, burned several blocks of
small houses clean, jumped over five
low brick buildings and row of
small shacks and swept on nearly a
mile unobstructcd until it reached a
better residence section. At o'clock
tonight it was two blocks beyond
Ponce de Leon avenue and not under
control. The fire fighters, who includ-
ed hundreds of soldiers who aided
by an abatement of the wind, but by
no means had mastered the flames,
which many feared would not be con-
quered until they burned themselves
out at the edge of Piedmont Park,
large open space in the northeastern
section of the city.
Thousands Homeless.
Thousands Of persons tonight were
homeless and are being fed and quar-
tered in public buildings by the Red
Cross and a committee of Atlanta
men.
The loss at 8 o'clock was estimated
at from $2,000,000 to $4,000 900, but
persons familiar with real estate val
ues stated that any estimate at this
time was nothing more than guess
work. The flames did not attack the
more exclusive residence sections, but
a large part of the devastation was
in neighborhoods composed largely of
homes ranging in value from $4,000
to $4,000.
Scores of pretty homes in a COM
parativcly r section Of the city to-
night were b blown up with dy-
Mantle to }. the blaze, but four
hours of this work had not resulted
in much good. The conf agration was
eating up home after home, more
slowly than in the afternoon when
driven by high wind, but moving
forward relcntlessly.
Driven Back Two Blocks.
The dynamiting began at Boulevard
Place at about o'clock, but the
| fighters soon were driven back two
blocks to Ponce de Leon avenue.
where the greatest effort was made.
Aided by the wide avenue and the
slowly dying dind, soldiers, fremen
and private citizens blew up blocks
of houses. Once or twice house on
the north side of the street would
catch fire, but for almost two hours
these sporadic outbreaks were
stopped.
Later, however, the flames gained a
foothold across the street, swept on
block to Vedo Way and moved on
in northeasterly direction.
Between Edgewood avenue and De-
catur street, at the start of the fire,
the flames confined themselves to the
section between Boulevard Place and
Hilliard street. At Edgewood they
moved eastward as far as Prospect
Place in spots, wiping cut a block
now and then. Practically the entire
section bounded by Hilliard street on
the west, Prospect Place on the east,
EdgeWood avenue on the south and
North avenue on the north was laid
waste.
Peachtree Street Threatened.
At North avenue North jackson
street became the western boundary
and with slight change in the wind,