The Great Fire of Salisbury today.
The fire started 125 years ago this evening (October 17, 1886), around 7 pm and destroyed most of Salisbury.
It might not be SBY News-worthy today but 125 years ago it was a pretty big deal.
Salisbury lost 22 acres of prime real estate. Downtown was totally lost with a couple of small exceptions & one more notable one: The Wicomico County Courthouse (the old courthouse as we call it). Fortunately though, for such a devastating fire, no one died.
6 comments:
Looks about the same today.
I really enjoy posts about the history of Salisbury. What devastation. At least that was accidental and was rebuilt.
This kinda dates the downtown plaza I'm guessing.I once saw a picture of a pond,or lake,that appeared to take up the whole midsection of town.That was actually the subject of a painting that was in the Poplar Hill Mansion.A lot of cities and towns had horrific fires in the 1800's.The citizens must have really worked together to rebuild SBY.
Was that the fire started by a cow kicking over a lantern? Oh wait that was chicago. I get those two towns mixed up.
Was what we call the "old courthouse" built then -- or later?
7:19 - The big difference between the Chicago fire and the Salisbury fire is that Chicago was worth rebuilding and has had better days since then.
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