Muscogee County GaArchives News.....Columbus Visited By Million Dollar Fire - February 1913 February 25 1913
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Carla Miles cmhistory@mchsi.com February 10, 2004, 11:11 pm

The Butler Herald
The Butler Herald
Tuesday, February 25, 1913
Page One

Columbus Visited By Million Dollar Fire

Believed To Have Been Of Incendiary Origin

Columbus was swept by the most destructive fire, possibly in her history Sunday 
morning, when all of those sections between Eleventh and Thirteenth Streets 
between Eighth and Ninth Avenues were devastated, the flames destroying 
property estimated to be worth more than one million dollars.

The fire department was first called out at 9:30 o’clock, when a few bales of 
cotton at the Atlantic Compress were found to be on fire and these were soon 
put out, and the department returned to its quarters.  Only a short time had 
elapsed when another alarm was turned in.  This time it was seen that a 
disastrous fire was eminent, and a general alarm was turned in calling out all 
of the companies.

The second time the department was called out it was seen that Columbus was 
again to be swept by a disastrous fire, and apparently an incendiary 
conflagration, as practically the entire compress had caught within a few 
minutes, the fire spreading with great rapidity.  There was a fairly stiff 
breeze from the northwest, which fanned the flames and caused them to spread so 
rapidly that the blaze could not be checked.

Eleven thousand bales of cotton were stored in the compress, and it was soon 
seen that this large amount of cotton was doomed.  The compress building burned 
like tissue paper, and it was only a comparatively short time after the blaze 
started until a great conflagration was on and a fire worse than the one which 
swept part of three residence blocks last April, was eminent.

There has never been a more spectacular fire seen in the city than that of 
Sunday night, the old Iron Works conflagration not accepted.  The lurid flames 
lit the heavens up for miles around, making the streets of Columbus almost as 
light as day.  People who had retired for the night were aroused from their 
slumbers and many were badly frightened because of the awe-inspiring spectacle 
presented.

Fortunately, for the residence section of the city, the fire started east of 
the railroads and was confined almost wholly to the compress section.  
Thousands of people flocked to the scene in buggies, hacks, automobiles, 
carriages, on foot, and, in fact, every way possible for them to travel.  It 
would be safe to say that there were easily ten thousand people who gathered 
around the fire on the various points where it could be viewed. – Columbus 
Ledger



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