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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
1
Our Success Means We Need to Expand
2
How Children Benefit From Playing an Instrument
2
What Happens When Semi-Truck Tires Burst?
3
Potbellied Pig Terrifies Burglars
3
Finney Injury Law Scholarship
4
How the Great Fire Shaped St. Louis
We Remember the Great Fire of 1849 WHEN ST. LOUIS BURNED
There is probably no darker time in St. Louis’ history than 1849. That year, the city
Most of the buildings were made of wood and burned quickly. Volunteer firefighters could not fight the fire fast enough, and they decided their best course of action was to create a “firebreak” by quickly demolishing buildings in the fire’s path. By destroying potential kindling, the fire would have nowhere else to go. Captain Thomas Targee demolished five buildings with gunpowder, successfully stopping the fire’s spread to the Old Cathedral. Sadly, in the middle of his efforts, gunpowder exploded prematurely in Targee’s hands, killing him. He was the only firefighter to die in the Great Fire and among the official (likely undercounted) death toll of three. When it formed in 1857, the St. Louis Fire Department began to celebrate Targee as a hero and continues to do so today.
The remaining firefighters could not fully extinguish the blaze until dawn on May 18, when the winds finally died. The Great Fire destroyed 15 city blocks and 418 buildings near the riverfront, and the effects of the Great Fire still resonate throughout St. Louis. St. Louis quickly rebuilt the area with brick and cast iron structures for extra fire resistance, some of the first buildings in the country to do so. But over the last 170 years, periodic revitalization efforts have continued to reshape the riverfront, and the Gateway Arch now stands above the heart of the once-destroyed area. Officials announced new revitalization efforts for downtown in 2022. We’ll never know how St. Louis would look today without the Great Fire, but it almost certainly wouldn’t be the same.
faced a cholera epidemic that killed at least 4,000 residents. And then, on May 17, St. Louis was set ablaze. St. Louis’ Great Fire began with a single mattress on a steamboat named White Cloud. After extinguishing the small blaze, the crew brought the bedding to the deck to air out. But some sparks must have remained from the original fire. Around 10 p.m., the boat was alight with flames. Watchmen urgently notified volunteer firefighters, but strong winds blowing across the Mississippi River spread the fire quickly. Soon, 23 steamboats were engulfed in fire, and cargo stacked near the riverside fueled the flames ashore.
Practicing in Missouri and Illinois
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