The Great Baltimore Fire

"Sunday morning, February 7th, about half-past 10 o'clock, while half of Baltimore was on its way to church, fire broke out in the large wholesale dry goods house of John E. Hurst & Co., at the corner of Liberty and German streets. From this point it raged until 5:45 o'clock Monday afternoon, when the exhausted firemen finally succeeded in bringing its destructive course to a halt among the lumber yards on Union dock, at the foot of Falls avenue, more than a mile from where it had started.
Its path, which today resembles nothing so much as a huge crescent, embraces eighty blocks in the heart of the business section; more than 2,500 buildings are in ashes, including the Chamber of Commerce, Merchants and Manufacturers' Association's headquarters; the Stock Exchange; more than half the banks and financial houses in the city, and practically the whole of the dry goods district, and the retail clothing district along Baltimore street, from Liberty street to the Baltimore street bridge over Jones' Falls, over a mile in length." Continued

Photos and text: Library of Congress