Describing the sights, smells, and sounds of a major fire is not easy. However, after "the most disastrous fire that has ever visited Guelph," the Evening Mercury was bound to try:
It was a most spectacular blaze. Citizens in all sections of the city were awakened by the glare of the flames, and hurried to the scene. Within fifteen minutes the whole of the mill property was a seething furnace. The building was filled with very combustible material, while the yards adjoining were piled high with dry lumber and manufactured product, which were rapidly consumed. High into the air shot the flames, carrying sparks and shingles and red hot metal roofing hundreds of feet, and for a time there was a genuine fear that the fire would get completely out of hand.The first alarm was turned in at 4:04am by Mrs. Steele, housekeeper of the Allan family that lived next door to the mill. Fire fighters responded, to find the blaze already well established and threatening to spread throughout the street and perhaps beyond.
On the west side of Upper Wyndham, the fire was already consuming the Hazelton and Coffee blocks. These were occupied by some well-known businesses, including Goetz's shoe store, Grinyer's electrician's shop, Smith's furniture, and Candyland. These were all incinerated.
On the street itself, the intense heat of the fire melted the guy wires for the street car line, allowing the live wires to drop into the roadway. Flashes of fire from the wires added to the general sense of alarm and helped to keep the crowds of spectators back, for fear of electrocution. Electricians working for the hydro utility came on the scene and helped to remove the hazard.
The Wellington Hotel across the road was soon in danger of being set alight. Heat from the blaze set the window sills on fire and flaming embers falling from the sky threatened to do the same to the roof.
Guests of the hotel were awakened, either by the roar of the fire itself or by the alarm. They threw on some clothes, quickly packed items in their portable luggage and made their way to the lobby. Some waited there for the final command to depart while others vacated immediately and moved across Woolwich street to Trafalgar Square.
Fire fighters kept the building from burning by keeping two streams of water on it throughout the night. This measure did the job, preventing the flames from taking hold and spreading down the whole east side of the street.
Even so, hardly a window on the street remained intact. The heat caused all to crack or even burst asunder. Many of the sills caught fire, to which the fire fighters responded by dousing them with water, often causing them to shatter under the pressure. Cracked and crushed glass spewed into the street adding to the fire fighters' difficulties.
In behind the lumber mill, the Victoria Rink on the Baker street lot, rebuilt in 1914 after a fire had destroyed its predecesor, was nearly set alight. The manicured greens of the Guelph Lawn Bowling Club were thoroughly singed. The dry kiln and its wooden fuel belonging to the White Sewing Machine factory on the lot was also consumed by flames and it appeared for a while that the factory building itself might follow suit. However, this too was prevent by fire fighters.
The list of damaged shops and stores on Wyndham street was extensive:
From Lou’ Watts barber shop to Keleher and Hendley’s store, every pane of plate glass in the store windows on the east side of the main street was smashed or cracked, and this loss alone will run into thousands of dollars.It is an odd fact the reports of disasters like this one often prompt descriptions of business interiors and provisions in the city that are otherwise missing from newspaper and other sources.
Two large windows at the G.T.R. ticket office were also damaged while at Garnet Singer’s jewelry store, next door, two more windows were badly broken. A valuable display of jewelry in the window escaped the flames and water, and very little damage to the stock was reported at this store.With a little imagination, one can almost imagine what would be seen while perusing these stores' goods the previous day.
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When the blaze was at its worst in the Coffee block, the front of Geo. Williams’ store took fire and two of the largest plate glass windows on the east side of the street were smashed to atoms. The heat caused by the raging flames melted a large quantity of candy, and otherwise damaged the confectionary, and the loss in this store will be considerable. One will realize the intensity of the heat when he considers that the glass candy containers in the store became so hot they could not be removed from the show casing.
More destruction was caused at Hiscox China palace and Cohen’s Furniture store, where all the windows in both places were broken. Mr. Cohen’s loss will be a heavy one because of the fact that some expensive furniture on display in the two front windows was completely ruined. Included in the damaged stock were a walnut bedroom suite, a valuable chesterfield, rugs, and other expensive furniture.
Similarly, we also hear of the people who lived in apartments of the upper floors of some of these buildings, especially if they had difficult or harrowing escapes:
It was a serious moment for [the Allan] family, for Mrs. Allan, as is generally known, has been an invalid for a great number of years. She was hurriedly wrapped in blankets and carried to safety by her son, Clifford, and the others had barely time to gather enough clothing to cover themselves before being driven to the street by the advancing flames. Kind neighbors immediately gave them shelter and they are now being cared for at the home of Dr. F.C. Grenside. In assisting with the family of Sheriff and Mrs. Allan, Miss Freda Grenside suffered slight injuries from the excessive heat, her hair being singed and neck blistered.These accounts of so many families living in apartments above stores reminds us that rented accommodations were much more common than today, when home ownership is almost everyone's life goal.
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In addition to the destruction caused to the stores on the east side of the street, eight families occupying apartments on the second and third floors of some of the buildings were driven from their homes, and owing to the rapidity with which the flames spread along the street, they were forced to make their exit over the roof tops, and descend to a lane at the rear of Wyndham street by means of ladders. During the excitement, Mrs. Adeline Humphries, one of the apartment residents, fainted three times, before she was finally rescued from the burning home.
Not only did people try to save themselves but they also acted to save their property or the property of others:
Mr. Grinyer [the electrician] had another narrow escape when he saved his motor car, which was in a shed at the back of the building. He succeeded, however, in getting the machine out, although the flames were shooting over and into the shed at the time.The front wall of Grinyer's store fell into the street at about 4:30am, leaving a sizeable pile of burning rubble. Fortunately, no one was injured.
Perhaps the most notable story of the evacuation was that of Rev. Frank Sanders, pastor of the Congregational church on Norfolk street. He was one of the first people on the scene and took action when the Wyndham Inn, which we would call a boarding house, caught fire.
But when this latter building took fire the reverend gentleman was prompt in helping to salvage the contents. When the ladies were finally driven out by the fire, he continued to carry out the chairs and tables and pass them to those outside. It was while he was in the act of getting out the last table from the dining room, that he narrowly escaped the falling roof which carried the upper floor down with it, the flaming mass of woodwork and beams falling within a few feet of where he stood and completely blocking up the room out of which he had just come.Divine intervention?
The main accolades went to the fire fighters and others who participated in the response to the fire. Fire Chief Knighton directed the efforts of the Guelph Fire Brigade. They were assisted by fire fighters from the Guelph Carpet Mills, the Ontario Agricultural College, and the Reformatory. In addition, the call went out for reinforcements as far away as Hamilton and Stratford. The Galt brigade was able to arrive with a supply of gear and rendered substantial help in figting the blaze.
Even after the flames of the fire were suppressed, fire fighters continued to pour water on the burned buildings throughout the day to prevent smouldering embers from reigniting it. Even on the morning of July 7, heaps of burning coal were located in the ruins of the Stewart mill that had to be doused (Mercury, July 7).
Walls within the ruins remained standing and had to be demolished to prevent them from collapsing suddenly later on. A street car was employed for the purpose under the direction of Chief Knighton:
A street car was used last night to bring down the big Coffee Block wall, which stood out alone with a three-foot warp in it. A rope was attached to a big steel girder underneath, and the rope was then tied on to the street car, and when the Hydro juice was turned on the girder was dragged out and the big wall crumpled up and fell.The demolitions left a long gap in the steetscape, from Candyland to the Apollo Theatre, showing the extent of the damage.
A set of real photo postcards, shown here, record the devastation, the firefighters, and the crowds of awed and bewildered spectators. Most are labeled, "Great Fire Guelph July 6th. 1921." One pair also show before-and-after views of the incinerated buidings:
The second image shows roughly the same part of the street after the walls had been pulled down.
Why reproduce these pictures as postcards? As this earlier post about the Gourock train wreck demonstrates, there was always a public demand to rubberneck at disaters, even if only through recorded imagery. The Mercury story makes it clear that large crowds from around the district gathered to witness the fire and its aftermath. Some enterprising local store owner recognized the commercial potential of the situation and, no doubt, had selected pictures of the scene sent off to nearby printers, who could return dozens or hundreds of copies for quick sale.
As numerous postcards of the Titanic and other misadventures plainly tell, disaster sells.
Another immediate consequence of the fire was that there was a "run" on plate glass in Guelph. Nearly every window on the street had been cracked or shattered as a result of the blaze. Many business and building owners wasted no time in ordering replacements. Even before the fire was officialy out, trucks carrying plate glass were on their way from Toronto (Mercury, 7 July). Several had a "mishap" near Bronte and had to return for replacements. Further consignments of glass began to arrive by both truck and train. About $7,000 of new glass was need to replace the windows on the east side of Upper Wyndham street.
Of course, building owners did not simply have thousands of dollars set aside in bank accounts in case of fire. Replacement windows and the myriad other expenses were covered (or not) by insurance. Insurance adjusters were on the scene before the ruins on Wyndham street had stopped smoking.
Most owners and businesses carried insurance against fire damage. From an initial inspection, they estimated the cost of the damage as a whole to be somewhere in the range of $300k to $500k. This was certainly a vast amount of money for the time and testimony to the wealth that the Royal City embodied by then.
E.M. Stewart of the Robert Stewart Lumber Co. wasted no time in applying the company's insurance to get the operation working again. By July 12, he had arranged for company equipment to be moved to vacant space at the Bell Piano Co. on Macdonell street. The Bell Company had been an important part of the manufacturing scene in Guelph in the late 19th century but was well into decline by the 1920s, so it seems that it had room to spare.
As the fire's embers cooled, talk about the town raised questions about how well the fire service was prepared for it and whether or not the fire watch had delayed raising the alarm.
Mayor Burgess requested an inquiry into the fire and the city's response to it, which Provincial Fire Marshal E.P. Heaton quickly arranged. The inquiry raised a number of concerns. For one thing, when Kitchener Fire Chief Guerin arrived in Guelph in response to the Guelph fire fighters' request for assistance, he found that Guelph had hydrants that were incompatible with those in Kitchener: threading on the hose connectors went opposite ways. Thus, the Kitchener crew's equipment could not be used. This observation suggested that fire equipment should be standardized in the province.
The inquiry raised a number of concerns specific to Guelph. It seemed that the water pressure in the city system was initially too low (Mercury, 26 July). It was standard practise for the fire department to telephone the Waterworks to ask for an increase of pressure when a fire was being watered. On the morning of the big fire, it took about 20 minutes for an increase in pressure to be generated, thus dampening the initial response to the fire.
Also, Guelph still relied on teams of horses to pull its firefighting equipment. Fire Marshall Heaton point out that similar cities in the province were investing in motorized gear, which could reduce the time taken to respond to fire alarms. Mayor Burgess noted that Guelph's city council had considered this option but decided not to proceed in order to avoid the tax increase needed to fund it. He was also of the opinion that motorized equipment would not have made a significant difference in the case of the recent fire.
Fire Marshal Heaton noted that reports from the Fire Underwriters' Association (that is, fire insurance providers) suggested that Guelph did not have an adequate method for processing fire alarms. There were already rumours about town that there had been delays in reporting the fire to the fire department. These focused on the city's reliance on the telephone service for this purpose. One witness claimed that he tried to phone in an alarm around 3.35am from the Wellington Hotel and reported that he could not get an operator. Mrs. Hogg, occupant of the Wyndham Inn, next door to the lumber mill, attempted to telepone the operator around 3.50am but was evidently unsuccessful. The operators' log suggested they received a call only after 4 o'clock, suggesting that the fire had burned for 25 minutes without a response.
At the conclusion of the inquiry, Fire Marshal Heaton could not decisively establish the cause or origin of the fire (Mercury, 30 July). However, he did conclude that Guelph's preparations for fires was inadequate. Provisions for water supply were not adequate and the firefighting gear was "woefully deficient."
In addition, the Royal City's reliance on the regular telephone system for raising alarms was "far from satisfactory." The Fire Marshal endorsed the suggestion of Fire Chief Knighton that the Royal City should adopt a system of fire alarm call boxes already common elsewhere. These call boxes had a direct connection to the fire department such that when a lever on the box is pulled, an alarm specifying the location of the box is sounded at the fire station. To drive the point home, and perhaps shame the city fathers, the Fire Marshal "read out a long list of towns, smaller than Guelph, each of which was equipped with an up-to-date alarm system."
Perhaps the coup de grace of the inquiry came from an unexpected quarter, having only a tangential relation to the fire and the city's response to it. Fire Marshal Heaton invited any member of the public to testify at the inquiry, an offer accepted by Mrs. Fred Hatch (Mercury, 29 July). When her turn came, her husband appeared bearing a note from a doctor stating she was too ill to attend, so he offered to speak in her place. A resident on a first-floor apartment at 92 Macdonell street, Mr. Hatch testified that his wife had seen two police officers, Clark and Shingleton, leaving a second-floor apartment and exiting the building at the rear, just as she went to the back window to look towards the fire when she got wind of it early in the morning. The apartment in question was occupied by a Mrs. Dempsey, her two daughters, and a Miss Peacock. Mrs. Dempsey, Mr. Hatch averred, "was in the habit of entertaining many male visitors." When asked if he had ever seen a Mr. Dempsey, he replied, "I never saw a Mr. Dempsey unless the many men frequenters there are Mr. Dempseys."
Naturally, this testimony and its implications caused quite an uproar, not to mention denials from Mrs. Dempsey and Constables Clark and Shingleton. The officers involved were indeed supposed to be on patrol, and not in hanging about in a "house of ill fame," but their beat was in the Ward and not on Upper Wyndham street, so their plight did not affect the inquiry into the fire in a direct way. Later on, the city Police Commission held a separate inquiry into their conduct. The result was that Constable Clark resigned from the force, while Constable Shingleton was discovered to be on probation after misconduct with the Toronto Police. So, his services were also no longer required.
Mayor Burgess saluted the bravery of citizens who reported this incident and remarked that if such happened more often, Guelph would have a more effective police force.
The Stewart Lumber Company, where the conflagration began, never returned to Wyndham street. Obviously, it was a fire hazard and probably would not be welcomed again there with open arms: It was a factory in a part of town that had come to be dominated by stores and offices. The company located its local operations to Cardigan street, across the road from Goldie's mill, where it remained until 1968 when the business was wound up.
The void left on Wyndham street by the combustion of the Stewart lumber mill and its neighbours remained for some time.
It was mostly remediated in 1935 when the Dominion Public Building, the city's new post office, was erected there, where it remains today in the hands of the Wellington County government.
With the smoke long since cleared and the chasm in Wyndham street filled in, the memory of the Great Fire of Guelph lives on in the Royal City's best set of disaster postcards souvenirs.
