Great Fire of Pittsburgh
[3] Its outstripped infrastructure provided poor water pressure and an insufficient volume to its ten ill-equipped volunteer fire companies,[4] which were more social clubs than effective public service organizations.
[7] The furnaces driving Pittsburgh's iron and glass industries had filled the air with coal dust and soot, as an 1823 observer reported, coating the walls and leaving the men working in the streets "as black as Satan himself,"[8][9] while the British author Charles Dickens had written in 1842 that the city had a "great quantity of smoke hanging over it.
During a brief interlude in the winds just before noon, Ann Brooks, who worked on Ferry Street for Colonel William Diehl, left unattended a newly stoked fire lit to heat wash water.
[14] The fire companies responded, but got nothing but "a weak, sickly stream of muddy water" from their hoses, and the flames quickly spread to several buildings owned by Colonel Diehl, including his home, and to the Globe Cotton Factory.
[18][19][20] Then the wind veered to the southeast and gave the fire added vigor; a witness stated that "the roar of the flames was terrific, and their horrible glare, as they leaped through the dense black clouds of smoke, sweeping earth and sky, was appalling.
[17] The Bank of Pittsburgh, thought to be fireproof, fell victim when the heat of the fire shattered the windows and melted the zinc roof, the molten metal igniting the wooden interior and burning all except the contents of the vault.
[23][24] A similar fate met the grand Monongahela House, called the "finest Hotel in the west," when its cupola caught fire and collapsed within, resulting in a total loss.
Some fled to the highlands to the east (the modern Hill District), then undeveloped except for the newly built courthouse, an area which remained untouched by the flames.
The volunteer companies, which functioned more as gentlemen's clubs than professional firefighting organizations, lost most of their hoses and two of their engines in the blaze.
[22] One hotel was saved within the burned area by using gunpowder to blow up the adjacent structures, creating a gap that the flames did not cross.
[42] Local artist William Coventry Wall[43] captured this landscape in a series of paintings which he quickly had printed as a lithograph.
[49][50] The mayor and attorney Wilson McCandless personally traveled to the state capital of Harrisburg to appeal for relief, and their petition was supported by Governor Francis R.
The latter had an unanticipated disadvantage, forcing public schools to remain closed for want of funding, while the Legislature subsequently made attempts to renege on some of the relief money they had granted.
[44] The first response of the city was one of despair, as can be seen in reports to newspapers in other cities and in initial descriptions: It is impossible for any one, although a spectator of the dreaded scene of destruction which presented to the eyes of our citizens on the memorable tenth of April, to give more than a faint idea of the terrible overwhelming calamity which then befell our city, destroying in a few hours the labor of many years, and blasting suddenly the cherished hopes of hundreds – we may say thousands – of our citizens, who, but that morning were contented in the possession of comfortable homes and busy workshops.
[58][59] Although the new homes, warehouses and shops were built of better materials and improved architecture compared to those destroyed,[59] the problems remained, with industrialist Andrew Carnegie commenting in 1848 on the fire-prone wooden buildings, and later on the smoke and soot-filled air.
[60] The market for replacement homes and household articles further invigorated the industries, and the fire was held to have "spurred the city to greater growth," an attitude encouraged by Pittsburgh's industrialists.
