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It was around 2:15 AM, September 7, 1898, and FS Davis was sound asleep in his residence on Pleasant Avenue when his faithful little dog suddenly jumped onto the bed and then onto his chest, barking alarmingly. “Davis found the room black with smoke,” the Prescott Weekly Courier described. The first thing he saved was his clothing, throwing them out a side door (which led to the loss of his watch). He then grabbed a pistol and ran out the door, only partially clad, firing his gun into the air to sound the alarm.
He first ran to his next-door neighbor to the south, Judge HT Andrews, to warn the people there. He then raced back to his home to save whatever he could, but the flames had advanced so aggressively that he was only able to retrieve his trunk and one chair.
There were six souls in the Andrews' house: Judge Andrews, his wife, their two children, a school teacher (Miss Hall), and a domestic named Celia Nyreen. They had time to get dressed. Judge Andrews took his children to William Smith’s place. His wife and Celia began removing items from the house and were soon assisted by five other men in the neighborhood.
“The firemen had to pull their carts up a long hill, and did splendid work. The fire would have been put out in five minutes had the water supply been adequate,” the paper mourned. “Before the stream of water was strengthened by turning on the reservoir and starting the pump in Goose Flat, the Andrews residence was in full blaze, and the residence of Mr. Roberts on the north was in danger,” but ended up unharmed.
Before that, a considerable amount of furniture was saved from the first floor of the Andrews’ residence, and the five men and two women were upstairs, continuing to save what they could. One of the men, Dr. EW Dutcher, was leading a folding bed down the stairs while the two women were holding up the rear, “when a gust of wind caused the flames to sweep across and cover the front door.
No longer able to withstand the heat, Dr. Dutcher jumped from the stairway to the first floor, breaking the bones in his instep. Still, he managed to stagger out of the building “more dead than alive,” the paper described. Upon witnessing the victim's dreadful state, “someone cried out: ‘Go for Dr. Dutcher,’ when the suffering man replied: ‘I am Dr. Dutcher, or all that is left of him.’”
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| S. Pleasant Avenue C.1920 |
Indeed, the doctor had been grossly burned. When he first exited the burning structure, his face “looked almost transparent, but turned yellowish and commenced to peel as the [night] air struck him. He cried out that his bowels were burning and called for oil, [and] he was taken [to his] home,” directly across the street.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Andrews was stuck on the staircase, blocked by the bed. Celia was able to get past the obstruction, but fell shy of the front door. “While this ghastly scene was going on inside the house,” the paper explained, “the crowd on the outside knew nothing of it until it was too late to render aid. The two ladies were overcome by the heat [and smoke] and were burned to death.”
Ed Block approached the front door as close as he could and yelled to the remaining men on the second floor to get out through a back window, which led to the porch roof. The first three men were able to secure a ladder, but fire shot out the window before the last two men could get to the porch roof. DA Burke and James Austin were painfully burned on their hands, arms, and face before they could escape.
It was Burke, then the Yavapai County Treasurer, who made everyone aware that the two women were still inside, but it was far too late.
The spectators on the street were immensely horrified when “the charred remains [of the two women] were taken out, placed on a hose cart, and taken to Logan’s undertaking parlor,” the paper recorded. “The bodies were burned beyond recognition,” but were easily identified by their difference in stature. “Mrs. Andrews’ hands were clasped on her breast, and her head thrown back, showing the agony in which she must have died… Celia’s arms were thrown forward, “the palms of the hands pointing outward as if warding off approaching danger.”
The cause of the deadly blaze could only be conjectured.
“The whole town is filled with feelings of sadness mixed with horror at so terrible a catastrophe, and a great volume of sympathy goes forth to…the bereaved husband.” A double funeral was held at the Methodist church the following afternoon.
At first, it seemed that Dr. Dutcher was improving from his dire state, but cerebrospinal meningitis developed, and his condition worsened rapidly. He suffered for three weeks before “death came to his relief and ended his suffering,” the Journal-Miner reported. As per his wishes, he was buried in his home state of California.
Ironically, the reason the school teacher, Miss Hall, chose to board in a private residence instead of a hotel was her fear of fire.
“The town is deeply stirred over the lack of water at a critical time,” the Arizona Republican wrote, “resenting a policy that places the risk of human life before the expenditure of a few thousand dollars.”
The Weekly Courier cited an observation from the Williams News: “The recent horrible holocaust in Prescott should make even the mild obstructionist to a waterworks system in Prescott ashamed of himself.”
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| In response to the tragedy, Prescott passed an ordinance to stop water squandering in hopes of increasing water pressure. |
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JUST ONE MONTH EARLIER: 1898: The Railroad Roundhouse Disaster
The story of the explosive demise of Engine No. 2, taking Prescott AZ’s railroad roundhouse with it.
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CLICK HERE for all the disaster stories
on #PrescottAZHistory
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SOURCES:
Prescott Weekly Courier, 9/9/1898; Pg. 4, Col. 4.
Weekly Journal-Miner, 9/14/1898; Pg. 1 Cols. 8-9.
IBID; Pg. 3, Col. 2.
Weekly Journal-Miner, 9/28/1898; Pg. 1, Col. 9.
Arizona Republican, 9/8/1898; Pg. 1, Cols. 1-2.
Prescott Weekly Courier, 9/16/1898; Pg. 1, Col. 1.
