Great Fire of Troy

The majority of the buildings in downtown area were also made of timber, making them susceptible to fires.

Troy had recently bought new steam-powered fire trucks, which were more efficient than the handheld pumpers used at the time.

Parts of the burning structure, floating with the river current, imperiled the steamboats and the smaller craft tied up along the wharves.

[1] The entire campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, located in downtown Troy at the time, was destroyed by the fire.

[3][5] In 2012 the Rensselaer County Historical Society opened an exhibit commemorating the 150th anniversary of the fire.

A map of the areas in Troy hit by the Great Fire.
Downtown Troy with roofless Union Station after the fire
Bird's eye view of Troy in 1881, looking south and showing both the covered bridge to Green Island at the bottom and the Union Station rebuilt on the left
News article from the summer of 1862 printed in the New York Evening Post and reprinted in the Sacramento Daily Union, claiming the bridge itself was the first priority to rebuild