My thanks to Gary Ramey for sending me info on the 1904 Great Fire of Baltimore. I was familiar with Chicago’s great fire in 1871 mostly because of O’Leary’s cow having started it. However, I was unaware that Baltimore had also experienced a Great Blaze of its own. As city fires go, Baltimore’s is ranked as the third worst behind Chicagos’ in 1871 and San Francisco’s Earthquake-related fires of 1906.
Gary sent me some historical documents discussing the fire including this 11 Feb 1904 front page of our St. Mary’s Beacon.
To assist you in trying to read thru this (click here) and note that the paper’s contents are transcribed in the left panel.
Although I did not land on anything mentioning the Baltimore fire, it was a fun exercise reading just what passed as news back then. Note that it was very different from what we have to deal with today news-wise. No politics was mentioned whatsoever. Proof that the good old days really were good!
Musically this tune comes to mind: