Caldwell County MO Archives History .....FIRE OF 1883 IN HAMILTON 
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 1:49 pm

THE FIRE OF 1883 IN HAMILTON
	Narrators:  Taylor Allee, Irvin Harper, and John Prough

     The fire of 1883 in Hamilton broke out at noon in the second story of a 
frame building standing a little south of the middle of the present McLain 
Penney block.  The story goes that a woman was building a fire with kerosene 
to hurry up dinner.  The row of old buildings then on the sites was used on 
second floor by poor folks mainly.  Her apartment caught fire and almost all 
the block to the north burnt.  It raged from one o'clock to six in the 
evening.  Goodman's block (the old Western hotel) went, consisting of two 
frames and a brick, another building went, then the top of the new Hamilton 
Savings Bank burned, also its second floor.  The roof of the next building to 
the north went.  The new brick of the Cash Cowgill firm on the corner (the 
present Penney store building) was smoke damaged.
     This fire was fought largely by the bucket brigade, for the Hamilton fire 
equipment was then very poor.  A line of men passed full buckets of water for 
two blocks from a public well, and a line of women passed back the empty 
buckets to be filled.  Several women yet alive stood in that line.  Mrs. Helen 
Booth was one.  Her husband was cashier of the bank and was a silent partner 
in the Cash Cowgill firm.  Another unique factor in fighting this fire was the 
use of blocks of ice which were housed in an ice house just back of the 
burning buildings.  Men hurled this ice freely onto the tin roofs of the 
burning buildings, which melted and ran down into the fires.
     These burned buildings were soon rebuilt with the brick line which stands 
there today, and Main street was better looking because of the fire.  To be 
sure, it was hard on the losers, for some did not carry fire insurance.  Most 
of these frames had been erected in the 60s and 70s and were quite 
disreputable in looks.
     The bank had to move out to its old location up north on the next block, 
while its building was repaired.  This fire did not move so quickly in its 
work of destruction as did the fire of 1884 on the opposite side.
     The narrators all helped in this fire, both in throwing ice, carrying 
water and carrying out goods from the doomed buildings.  Mr. Goodman always 
claimed that he lost $10,000 in this fire, through the lapse of his policy.
     Interviews  1933-4.


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