Evening star., 1940-11-17

Thirty-five minutes after the fire
started, Sergt. Arnold of the police
force, who saw smoke issuing from
the Ninth street windows, turned in
an alarm and the fire department
was quickly on the scene, but the
fire in the meantime had gained
much headway. Arnold, who turned
in the alarm, as many will recall,
was later well known as 1t. Dick"
Arnold, being stationed for many
years at No. / precinct on Twelfth
street, between c and D streets. un-
til a decade ago. He was an unus-
ually efficient officer, and, strange
as it may seem, it was his efficiency
that led to his dismissal from the
force.
Baltimore Aid Asked.
Martin Cronin, one of the best
fire-fghters Washington ever had,
was then chief engineer Of the de-
partment and, upon arriving at the
fire, at once turned in a general
alarm. Secretary of the Interior
Carl Schurz, who had Offices In the
building, urged that immediate as
sistance be requested Of Baltimore,
and the Mayor of that city was ac-
cordingly appealed to. to send over
what firemen and apparatus they
could spare Alexandria was also
telegraphed for aid and sent the
steamer Hydralion and the relief
hook and ladder company with their
truck, which was put on the boat
and arrived here and got into serv-
ice about l o'clock.
Fifteen minutes after the Balti-
more department was telegraphed
several pieces of apparatus, in
,.cluding Nos. l and steam engines
and hose carriage, were in the rail-
road yard. Through what seems to
have been stupid handling of the
situation, the train was delayed in
the yard 36 minutes before startinC.
not leaving there until l pm. arl
pot until 2:12 O'Clock, taking orr
hour and six minutes to make the
trip. At the time it was reported
that the 40 miles were made in 81
minutes, but obviously this was
not so.
A second train from Baltimore
with engines and beat the fir,
train time by II minutes. arrivir7
| here in 54 minutes. Upon a.
other occasion when Baltimo
asked help from Washington, IT.
trip was made in Al minutes.
When the Baltimore engines e.
rived at the depot they were drs
from there to the fire by the ho--
of our department. In the me
time the roof of the western v
had fallen in and the fire had M
its way along the G street wing t.
ward Seventh street.
National Misfortune.
While the property damage here
did not run over a million dollars,
the loss in models, maps and pa
pers cannot be estimated. The 20
900 rejected models stored in the
loft, and which were entirely wiped
out, may not have amounted to so
very much, but the loss of $1,000 to
10000 patent models was a national
misfortune.
The Smithsonian's fire goes q lit
tie farther back. and took place one
cold winters day on January "a.
1865. Its cause was about as un-
usual as one might imagine. Some
workmen, 1t seems, were assigned
TO room which had been unoccu-
pied for long time. Becoming
cold, they decided to build a fire in
stove which was standing in the
room. The stovepipe ran to what
appeared to be perfectly good flue
in the wall, but which turned out
to be blank space. The heat,
therefore, instead of going up the
supposed chimney flue, discharged
itself into loft Immediately under
the roof instead of into the air.
Ten years before this fire took
place, workmen had made this fue
hole and occupied the room for
some time, strange to say, without
causing any trouble. This previous
fire, however, had caused the
woodwork to become almost char
coal, and when the second lot Of
men came along a decade later
they unConsciously started a fire
in place almost as appropriate as
in haystack
Soon the rafters were ablaZe, and
before the fire was discovered the
entire woodwork was in flames.
So rapid was the fire that but few
of the contents of the upper rooms
could be removed before the roof
fell in.
Extreme cold weather prevailed at
the time, and before the engines
could be brought into service the
whole of the roof was In flames.
The fire started at about IS minutes
to o'clock pm, at the west end of
the center building and the flames
were driven by strong wind east
wardly toward the east wing, and
thus fortunately away, as 1t so
happened, from the library, which
was at that time in the west wing.
otherwise, an additional loss Of
some 10000 volumes would have
been sustained.
Perhaps the greatest damage
caused by this fire was the almost
entire loss of the Indian paintings
by John M. Stanley, artist-explorer.
who had deposited in the institu-
ton for safekeeping 146 of the best
paintings All of these were de-
stroyed except five of his more
important canvases, which had
been removed from the art gallery
to another part of the brilding
fortunately not touched bv the
flames. The five paintings saved
now form part of the permanent
collection Of the National Muses,r,