A BLAZE IN MOBILE.

The Most Disastrous Fire Since the War.

COTTON WAREHOUSES CONSUMED.

The Fire Starts in a Sawmill, and Fed by a Strong Breese, Quickly Communicates to the Surrounding Warehouses and Wharves – A Number of Steamboats Burned.

MOBILE, Ala., Oct. 27. – A fire began about 12:40 o’clock yesterday afternoon and resulted in the most disastrous conflagration that Mobile has had since the war. The fire began in a shingle mill and factory near the river front just outside the northern boundary of the city limits. A strong wind from the northeast, perhaps a twenty mile breeze, was blowing. The flames soon communicated to the cotton warehouses which line the river front from Beauregard street, the northern boundary, southward six blocks, and from the river front westward to Magnolia street three blocks.

From the shingle mill to Goodman’s warehouse, on the block bounded by Front, Beauregard, Water and Lipscom streets, the distance is about 600 yards, and almost as soon as smoke was seen issuing from the roof, the cotton blazed up. In Goodman’s there was stored about 900 bales of cotton, carried by the wind, next communicated the flames to Brown’s warehouse on Lipscom street and Water, and running back to Magnolia street to the southwest to the Mobile Oil mills, which was next south on the east side of Front street, and to the wharf front of the Mobile and Birmingham Railroad company, which fronted on the water from Beauregard to Lipscom street.

Flames Spread Like Lightning.
The inflammable character of the material which fed the flames and a quarter gale of wind that was blowing caused the fire to spread with lightning like rapidity, and before 2 o’clock in the afternoon it looked as if the fire would spread from end to end of the water front of the city.

Before the Mobile Oil mills, in that company’s water slip, were two steamers, the Jewel and Mary Elizabeth and also the steamer Helen S, the tug Margaret Lunhard and the government snag boat Warren. Half a dozen men got the boats out of the slip into the stream, saving all but the Jewel and the Mary Elizabeth, which burned to the water’s edge.

The flames swept on down the wharf front of the city. At the next slip fronting near the foot of Adams street were the river steamer Ruth, two naphtha launches and four or five cotton and timber tugs, all of which were got into midstream with only slight injury, except the steamer Ruth and the naphtha yacht Gen. Fowler, which were destroyed in a few moments.

The Wharves Burned.
The water front wharves were entirely burned from Beauregard street on the north to St. Louis street, the flames leaping the wharf slips as hurdle racers leap the stone wall. A large amount of cotton which was closely packed in the warehouses and presses, amid the inflammable character of the material which fed the flames made the fire an intensely hot one, and the high wind caused it to spread so rapidly that it was impossible for the fire department to do more than stand idly by and see it burn.
The fire burned up rapidly among the cotton warehouses and presses. When Goodman’s warehouses and presses. When Goodman’s warehouse was in a blaze, smoke was seen issuing from Brown’s cotton warehouse roof a square away on the northeast corner of Water street, and at the same moment the Gulf City Oil mill on the east side of Commerce, between Adams and Lipscomb streets, with warehouse which was stored full of cotton, oil, oil cake and meal blazed out, and the firemen and the large crowd of spectators which had gathered in the vicinity had to flee from the advancing flames.

At this writing the property destroyed is 5,680 bales of cotton, three steamers, one naptha launch, eleven freight cars, grain laden, belonging to the Mobile and Ohio railroad company, five empty box cars of the Mobile and Birmingham road, two wood and coal yards, and three cotton compressers [sic] and eight cotton warehouses, the Gulf City oil mill and warehouse, the Mobile Phosphate and Chemical works, the Gage Lyons ice factory, and numerous small business houses in the locality. So far there has been no casualty reported. The wind died away at 5 p.m. It is estimated the total loss will exceed $500,000.

Indiana Gazette, Indiana, PA 30 Oct 1890
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Transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!