at a glance flames engulf the flatsteachingcleveland.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/1914.pdf · war...

THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, MAY 10, 1998 5-D

OUR CENTURY1914

AT A GLANCE

Immigrants worr y aboutwar in their homelands Flames engulf the Flats

The tinder had been piling up in Europe foryears. On June 28, the spark was struck in Sa-rajevo, Bosnia. A 19-year-old Serbian, GavriloPrincip, assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdi-nand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A month later, the empiredeclared war on Serbia, and alliances quicklybrought in nation after nation.

Two-thirds of Clevelanders were immi-grants or children of immigrants, and many ofthe recent arrivals had left their homeland be-cause they saw the war coming. They shud-dered for their relatives back home.

Loyalties were divided: Germans and Hun-garians supported the Central Powers; so didthe Irish, who had fled the British occupationof their island.

Clevelanders felt few effects at first, al-though nickelodeon prices went up to a dimebecause the war halted imports of chemicalsused to make film.

Patriotism stirred: The school system de-creed that every school must fly the flag daily.

·Cleveland baseball fans had two profes-

sional baseball teams to watch in 1914, butneither was worth watching. Fearful that the

“outlaw” Federal Leaguewould field a team in thecity, Naps owner CharleySomers decided to offerdaily baseball. He movedhis American Associationteam from Toledo, whereit wasn’t drawing, toLeague Park.

Players shuttled backand forth between the twoteams. The AA team fin-ished fifth. The Naps fin-ished last at 51-102. The102 losses were a Cleve-

land record which, though matched in 1971,stood until the 1991 Indians lost 105 in a 162-game season. The 1914 percentage of .333 re-mains an all-time low.

In June, the Naps were defeated by a RedSox rookie left-handed pitcher making his firststart. Fans agreed that George Herman“Babe” Ruth had a bright future as a pitcher.At the end of the season, the Naps released Na-poleon Lajoie, after whom the team wasnamed. He played two more seasons with theAthletics before retiring with a lifetime bat-ting average of .338. He was named to the Hallof Fame in 1937.

·Adapting to changing times, City Council

required that all vehicles — even baby buggies— have tail lights. Another ordinance set apenalty up to 30 days in the workhouse for jay-walking, although police said it would not beenforced until citizens got used to crosswalks.The speed limit was 15 mph in residentialareas, 8 mph in congested areas.

·The lily fountain on the northwest quadrant

of Public Square was removed to make roomfor a statue of Tom L. Johnson, and the quad-rant was dedicated forever to free speech.Soapbox orators took full advantage.

·Culture was bursting out all over. Leopold

Stokowski brought the Philadelphia Orchestrato Grays Armory. Singer Bernard Landino ap-peared at the Miles Theater. He had beenknown as Barney Landesman when he soldnewspapers in Cleveland before going off tostudy in Italy. Madame Namara-Toye, freshfrom a European tour, gave a recital. She hadbeen Marguerite Banks when she was growingup in Cleveland. There were even rival pro-ductions of “Sappho” simultaneously at theCleveland Theater and Grand Theater.

Headliners at the Hippodrome includedScottish singer-comedian Harry Lauder anddancers Vernon and Irene Castle. The newMetropolitan Theater opened with “The ManWho Owns Broadway.” The production of“Ben Hur” at the Opera House featured aspectacular special effect: an on-stage chariotrace, using a treadmill.

·In June, the city offered a bounty of 10 cents

per 100 for flies, but they had to be fresh-caught. The “swat-the-fly” campaign failed toexterminate the enemy.

·New this year: The Federal Reserve Bank,

the Municipal Light Plant on the lakefront, thevillages of Brook Park and Independence, theCleveland Boxing Commission, the CuyahogaCounty Board of Education, the Building Own-ers and Managers Association.

PLAIN DEALER FILE

At left, shown about 1907 before the disastrous Flats fire, stacked lumber awaits shipment on the Cuyahoga River and in freight cars, under the CentralViaduct. At right, after the fire of 1914, the Viaduct is broken up by a gaping hole, and debris litters the ground below. After the fire, the City Councildecreed that there could be no lumberyards under bridges.

Central Viaduct collapses, downtown threatened

‘Fires were breaking out continuouslyin the Haymarket district from

flying brands.’The Plain Dealer, May 26, 1914.

By Fred McGunagle

The flames, visible for miles,brought as many as 250,000 Cleve-landers to line the hills along theCuyahoga River. As they watched infascination, the flames in the Flatscrept closer and closer to downtown,engulfing lumberyards and bridges intheir path.

To the consternation of firefighters,fire was falling from the sky on of-fices and homes as far away as E.40th St.

“Fires were breaking out continu-ously in the Haymarket district fromflying brands,” The Plain Dealer re-

ported on May 26, 1914. “Companieswere switched from one end of thecity to another and when they arrivedat their new quarters received ordersto go to another fire.”

Frank Hogen, the school superin-tendent, called in a volunteer squadof 50 school custodians to Brownelland Eagle schools, where theyformed bucket brigades and saved ascore of houses near E. 14th St. andCentral Ave. City refuse crews bat-tled for three hours to save 150horses in the city stables.

Seven firefighters were overcomeby smoke, but recovered. Six otherswere trapped on the Central Viaduct,and escaped by dashing through the

flames to the east end. Soon after, theviaduct collapsed and a 250-foot sec-tion of twisted metal crashed down onthe Nickel Plate Railroad bridge be-low.

While the city’s two fireboats

played their hoses on the flames, tugsscurried to push ships into the lakebefore the flames caught them.Around midnight, the wind provi-dentially changed and began blowingthe flames back toward the burned-out areas. Still, it was the next after-noon before exhausted firefighterspacked up their hoses and cleanupcrews moved into the debris-filledFlats.

There were, almost miraculously,no deaths. The Ringling Brothers Cir-cus had pitched its Big Top near theFisher-Wilson lumberyard, where thefire broke out, but panic was pre-vented by the quick action of rousta-bouts, who strong-armed men shout-ing “fire” outside the tent andforcibly hustled them away, allowingthe crowd to file out safely.

Twenty-five of the 45 circus carswere destroyed, but manager AlRingling quickly called in replace-ments to keep the show on the road.

The Flats fire did $1.5 million indamage, destroying 15 to 20 millionboard feet of lumber. It left a hugegap in the viaduct, one of the two ma-jor bridges across the river fromdowntown, and forced rerouting oftrains. Belatedly, city officials ques-tioned the wisdom of allowing lum-beryards beneath bridges.

Bankers quickly agreed to lend thecity $125,000 for repairs to the via-duct, but it was a year before it re-opened. Meanwhile, autos, wagonsand streetcars were limited to low-level bridges or the Superior Viaduct,where they periodically were haltedwhen the span swung open for ships.

McGunagle is a Cleveland free-lance writer.

Somers

PLAIN DEALER FILE

Two lumberyards were destroyed and a third sustained heavy losses during the Flats fire on May 25, 1914. Here,the Central Viaduct is lit up with flames.

LOOKING AT A YEAR

Jan. 5: Henry Ford stuns the busi-ness world by announcing he will payhis auto workers $5 a day and givethem profit-sharing. The companyalso announces its plants will beginoperating around the clock.

June 28: Archduke Ferdinand is as-sassinated in Sarajevo.

Aug. 1: The first shots of World WarI are fired as Germany declares waron Russia.

Aug. 4: Germany invades Belgium.England declares war on Germany.

Aug. 23: The emperor of Japan de-clares war on Germany.

Sept. 3: Giacomo della Chiesa is

elected Pope Benoit XV.Sept. 15: Germany scores a huge

victory over Russian troops in thebattle of the Masurian Lakes.

Dec. 24: Allied forces end a 10-dayassault on German troops in Franceand Belgium. After five months ofwar, casualties on both sides are ap-

proaching 1 million.Born: Jonas Salk, Alec Guinness,

Babe Didrickson-Zaharias, Joe Louis,Yuri Andropov.

Died: Pope Pius X (Giuseppe Mel-chiorre Sarto), nature writer JohnMuir, home appliances inventorGeorge Westinghouse.