I got curious about resets and conflagrations. I decided to take a list of major American cities, and to check each city for a history of having been burnt to the ground, particularly within a unified timeline. Honestly, having started with such a large list of seemingly random cities, I did not expect to compile such a compelling list. I think other countries may find the same hidden history of destructive fires selectively tucked away in their archives…perhaps I’ll take the time to do a few other countries at some point, but this was tedious work so I might opt out.
…two things. (1) Just because a great fire occurred doesn’t be East mean it’s connected to a reset. (2) just because I show no great fire for a given city doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Now here are screen shots from search results, although now that you have city and date for these major ones, feel free to dig in on your own and see what else lies in the murky details.
Here are a few other key details to integrate:
Earliest American cities founded: 1600’s
- St. Augustine, FL, Founded: 1565
- Jamestown, VA, Founded: 1607 (AFTER a city in Florida?)
- Santa Fe, NM, Founded: 1607
- Hampton, VA, Founded: 1610
- Albany, NY, Founded: 1614
- etc.
America Founded: 1776
American Civil War: 1861-1865
…so, we had cities here for almost 200 years before we started having problems with mass conflagrations? We obviously had records at this time, but none of fires like this. It’s like a rash that began in NY in 1776 and spread throughout the 1800s and early 1900s…unless you count London I666 Fire as the start…which is not unreasonable if we start looking at this as a phenomenon of the “Western world” and not just the United States.
Here I’ve tabled them up and arranged them by date. I also added color coding for states considered Northern vs Southern. I have no idea if this factor would impact things, so I’m kind of just looking at additional details to see what weaves together…by the way, I did NOT realize that Washington DC was considered part of the Confederate south…did you??
The largest city in the country burns down in the same year that the country…becomes a country? Ok whatever you get my point. Here are the screen shots:
| Column1 | Column2 |
|---|---|
 | New York: 1776 |
 | Chicago: 1871 |
 | New Orleans: 1788 |
  | Boston: 1760, 1872 |
 | San Diego: 1913 |
 | Nashville: 1916 |
 | Charleston: 1861 |
 | Honolulu: 1900…I honestly didn’t expect to find anything on this one. |
 | San Francisco: 1851 |
 | Seattle: 1889 |
 | Los Angeles: 1933 |
 | Miami: 1896, 1912 |
 | Washington DC: 1813 |
 | Atlanta: 1917 |
 | Savannah: 1820 |
 | Minneapolis: 1893 |
 | Denver: 1863 |
 | Portland: 1866 (Portland Maine…does that still count? LOL) |
 | Phoenix: 1916 |
  | Orlando: 1884…same year population is reported as having grown to 1666…probably nothing. |
 | Baltimore: 1904 |
 | Raleigh: 1831 |
 | Alexandria: 1827 …news article even appears to mention Tartar empire???… |
 | Salt Lake City: 1883, 1898 |
 | Kansas City: 1917 |
 | Houston: 1912 |
 | Detroit: 1805 |
 | Charlotte: 1918 |
 | Omaha: 1866 |
 | Philadelphia: 1850 |
 | Dallas: 1860 |
  | Cincinnati: 1866 & 1881 |
 | Columbus: 1935 (and technically 1930) |
 | Peshtigo (Madison): 1871 …same DAY as the Great Chicago Fire… |
  | Tampa: 1908 (note: newspaper says I908, not 1908…) |
  | Sacramento: 1852 |
 | Milwaukee: 1892 |
 | Ft. Worth: 1909 |
 | St. Louis: 1849 |
 | Cleveland: 1852 |
 | Jacksonville: 1901 |
Is this evidence of a greater effort, buried deep in our past? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t honestly know; I just thought it was interesting that we have this famous Chicago fire, yet, nearly all major cities were burned to the ground within this general time frame. I guess, to me, it’s at least worth considering…but I digress.
I hope you have a wonderful day, filled with love and positive energy. May you meet wonderful people, eat wonderful foods, and nourish your soul in whatever way speaks to you.
Random images I came across in my research:
(👆74 more rows of cities that experienced multi-building fires…in North Carolina ALONE.)
👆…a whole BOOK dedicated to the great fires of a single year, I919…weird.
👆I666…what an odd year for the London Fire…about 200 years before the rest, perhaps this was where the reset by fire began?
Thanks for checking out some more of my work! As always, I hope you enjoyed witnessing as much as I enjoyed creating!
© Photos and words by @albuslucimus, except where otherwise indicated.
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