Beneath the Gilding: Knoxville’s Million Dollar Fire of 1897 and Fire Safety Reform in the Marble City

In the early morning hours of April 8, 1897, Knoxville Mayor Samuel Gordon Heiskell stood and watched as flames engulfed Knoxville’s central business district. At 5:00 a.m. Heiskell conferred with James McIntosh, the chief of the Knoxville Fire Department. McIntosh reported that Superintendent W.H. Hague of the city’s water company had the reservoirs filled and was operating at full capacity. His men needed an additional steam engine and 6,000 feet of fire hose to adequately fight the fire, but the department had barely half that amount. “The fire is completely out of control,” McIntosh said, “and I’m afraid the town is gone unless we can get help.”1 Heiskell followed the advice and asked Reps Jones and Jacob W. Borches of the board of public works to issue a permit authorizing Chief McIntosh to request assistance from Chattanooga—the city’s commercial and industrial rival to the south.

At 5:30 a.m., Jones sent a wire to the Chattanooga Fire Department for help. An hour and sixteen minutes later, a special train carrying a new steam engine known as the “W.L. Dugger,” a chemical truck, firefighting equipment, and a crew of nine firemen cleared Chattanooga bound for Knoxville at record breaking speed. Major F.K. Huger, the general manager of the Southern Railway Company in Knoxville cleared the line from Chattanooga to Knoxville, alerting stations and dispatchers to sidetrack all trains and fasten down all switches. News spread rapidly that Knoxville was on fire and people lined the railroad from Chattanooga to Knoxville to witness the spectacle. At Cleveland, Tennessee, the special train sped through at 60 miles per hour as the crowd there cheered it on. The train rolled through Sweetwater at 75 miles per hour and hit nearly 90 miles per hour in Bearden before arriving in Knoxville at 8:43 a.m. The 111-mile trip was completed in 117 minutes at an average speed of nearly 60 miles per hour.

When the train arrived at the Broadway crossing, hundreds of men, women, and children were on the bridge to welcome them. Within five minutes of the train’s arrival, firemen unloaded the “Dugger” and the chemical ladder truck. Horses hauled the equipment to the scene of the fire. With the fire spreading southward, McIntosh instructed the Chattanooga firemen to position themselves just south of the department’s newest steamer, the “M.E. Thompson,” in front of William W. Woodruff’s hardware store and Arnold, Henegar, Doyle and Company’s shoe store. The Chattanooga firemen ran two lines of hoses from the water plug at the corner of Union and Gay streets and vigorously attacked the southern flank of the fire. The added strength enabled the Knoxville Fire Department to gain control of the blazing fire and largely extinguish the flames within a few hours.

Photo courtesy of Susan Cook Collection