Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1944-01-09
Washington Fires Long to Be Remembered
BY John Clagett Proctor,

BY John Clagett Proctor.
There certainly cannot be anything
much more appalling than fire when
it assumes the nature of conflagration
and when human lives are at stake.
Fortunately, Washington has never been
visited by IRE such as was Chicago
in 1871, and the Baltimore fire of more
recent date, and large fires of other
cities that might be mentioned. But
while Washington is fortunate in having
wide streets and type of building of
a more or less fire-resisting quality, yet
we are certainly not immune from dis
astrous fire and the danger has certainly
years by the erection Of number of
cheap housing units and war office
buildings which are far from flreproof
OF course, Washington has had its
share Of fires, and big ones, too, though
fortunately they did not spread over any
considerable area of the city, as they
have done in other places. But it has
certainly had some destructive blazes,
among which might be mentioned the
burning of the Smithsonian Institution
Building which occurred on January 4,
1865, just 70 years ago, on an unusually
cold day. And, like many fires, it could
have, and should have been averted.
Smithsonian Fire.
Somehow or other, the authorities al
ways lock the stable door after the horse
is gone and then some one scouts around
for the missing horse, and If the lost
one cannot be found then they substi-
tute "goat'--which is popular thing
to do nowadays to shift responsibility.
However, in this case the blame was
put on some Workmen who were as
signed to a room which had been I'M
occupied for a long time. Becoming
cold, SO the story goes, they decided to
build a fire in a stove which was stand
ing in the room. The stovepipe ran to
what appeared to be a perfectly good
f1ue in the wall, though actually it was
but "a Turing space resembling a f1ue,
which opened under the rafters instead
Of into the chimney.
Strange to say, 10 years before this
fire took place another set of workmen
had made this fiue hole and heated the
room for sometime without causing any
apparent trouble However. it did I'M
QueStionably cause the woodwork to be-
come almost charcoal. with the result
that when the second lot of men came
along in 1865, they unconsciously started
fire in a place almost as appropriate
as hayStack.
Soon the rafters were ablaze and be-
fore 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 be-
fore the roof fell in
The fire started at about Is minutes
to 3.o'clock in the afternoon, at the west
end of the center building, and the
flames were driven by strong wind
eastwardly toward the east wing, and
thus fortunately away, as it 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
The Federal Governments and the
District governments fire engines both
responded to this fire, Franklin Engine
No. being the first to reach the ground
and get to work
The stone work of the building stood
very well, except a portion of the east
tower on the north front, which fell
about AIS o'clock with a terrific crash,
causing a general scattering of the
crowd but, fortunately, throughout the
fire, no one was injured
Valuable Paintings Lost
Perhaps the greatest damage caused
by this fire was the almost entire loss of
the Indian paintings by John NJ. Stanley,
artist explorer, who had deposited in the
institution for safekeeping l46 of his best
paintings. All of these were destroyed
except five of his more important can
vases, which had been removed from the
art gallery to another part of the build
ing.
To the ethnologist this was a most
serious loss. David T. Bushnell, in his
paper entitled John Mix Stanley, Artist
EXporer,' says: The destruction of the
collection of 146 paintings caused an
irreparable loss, a loss which will be more
fully appreciated in the future when the