USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > The story of Bridgeport > Part 8
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In 1880, just 330,847 passengers were carried on the horse cars. In 1934, the Bridgeport lines, between the buses and the trolleys, carried some 16,000,000 passengers.
The year 1936 finds Bridgeport with 49 miles of trolley tracks and 160 miles of bus routes, also includ- ing Norwalk.
SHORT LINE BUS
The Short Line Bus Co., a private corporation which operates out of Bridgeport, commenced operations in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1924.
Lines directly under the supervision of the Bridgeport Division include the route from New Haven to New York and a line to Waterbury.
The company has offices at 1188 Main Street, a modern bus terminal at 54 Golden Hill Street and a garage at 718 Crescent Avenue. The company is operated and managed by Bridgeport men. Twenty- one buses operate out of Bridgeport.
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1836 THE
STORY
OF BRIDGEPORT
1936
MIDNIGHT FIRES
CHAPTER TEN
"F IRE! Fire! George Wells' on Fire !!! "
The cry of alarm was carried on icy winds up Main Street, down State, across Water, the night of December 12, 1845, till every corner of the city was reached. Doors were flung open, windows shot up, men and women rushed to the street, struggling into hats and coats against the bitter cold.
Shouting and running they dashed to Bank Street, jostling with the firemen to crowd to the front of the fire. Engines were hurried to the scene, frantically tried to get water to the imperiled buildings, but the tide was low, the pumps were dry and the flames raged unchecked. In spite of the hysterical efforts of firemen and pedestrians alike, building after building fell before the advancing inferno.
In an incredibly short time, half the downtown district was ablaze and before the fire was over, 49 buildings had been razed by the flames, 40 families were penniless and homeless, and property losses had totaled $150,000.
The fire of 1845 changed the whole history of the business section of the city for it resulted in an over- night move of the center of the section from Water Street to Main, where it has remained ever since.
Flames were discovered at 1:30 a.m. in the oyster saloon owned by George Wells on Bank Street. The fire made rapid headway through the flimsy wcoden building, helped by the high winds. Everyone "did his bit" at the fire engine but there was little water. The only available supply was in the harbor and the tide was so low that the suction hose could not reach the water surface.
Consequently, people directed their energies towards saving household effects and the streets out- side the burned district were soon piled high with goods and furniture which in most instances, was moved but not saved.
Down Bank Street to the river's edge spread the fire. Up and down Water Street it went, out onto the docks, sweeping everything before it. All build- ings on the east side of Water Street below Wall were burned to a crisp. On the west side, buildings were seared almost as far north as Wall. Traveling south on the west side of Water Street, flames licked greedily on to a point below State, going as far as the
Temperance Hotel kept by A. A. McNeil, one historian commenting that "here the fire stopped as there was nothing more within reach!"
When the firemen found they could not control the fire in Water Street, they centered their efforts
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UNION ST
THE GREAT FIRE OF 1845
Half the downtown section of Bridgeport was burned to the ground, two weeks before Christmas, 1845, when fire broke out in an oyster saloon on Bank Street. Darkened areas on map show extent of fire.
on checking its spread to Main Street. Already the flames were encircling a small group of buildings on the north side of State Street, not far from Main. Next door, west, was the residence of William Peet, father-in-law of Mayor Harral. Extra efforts were centered on this building as it was considered the pivot of the fire. If this one caught, there was no way to prevent the fire from reaching Main Street.
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To this end, the east side of the building and the roof were covered with carpets which were kept soaked with water. The efforts were successful for the fire never reached Main Street.
GOT HIS HORSE READY
One George Sanford, an apprentice carriage maker, gave the best first hand description of the fire. Young Sanford boarded on Main Street, occupying a room in the rear of the house from which he had an excellent view of the oyster saloon on Bank Street.
"Mr. Sanford states that his landlady Mrs. Middle- brook called to him about one o'clock on the night of December 12th saying 'George Wells' is all afire'!" relates an old historical account.
"Mr. Sanford dressed immediately and was one of the first to reach the fire. It had started in a lot of shavings in the cellar, kept to use in roasting oysters, and it quickly burst through the floor, enveloping the structure.
" "Then', says Mr. Sanford, 'everyone thought the fire must run into Main Street. I went back to the house, packed my things and then went across the street to the Sterling House stables and had my horse harnessed ready to move if the fire spread into Main Street. Many others were making similar prepara- tions.
" 'I went back to the fire and worked a spell on an engine as a volunteer. William Wall came to me and asked me to open up his grocery store, near Thomas Hawley and Company's store, and to give to all, crackers and cheese and cigars. He could not do this as he belonged to one of the engine companies. I did so and there were a large number of boilers of coffee brought in by the ladies. One or two other stores were opened in a like manner.
" 'There were three or four hand engines in town, but all the buildings were of wood so that the fire spread rapidly. The tide was out and the pipes from the engines kept filling with mud as they took water from the river. The fire ran into Water Street and soon spread on both sides of the street. It was finally stopped from going north on the west side by pulling down a small wooden building just below Thomas Hawley and Company's.
" 'The fire ran down both sides of Water Street, below State, burning what was called "The Old Flat Iron" corner of Water and State Streets that had
been an eyesore to Bridgeport people for a long time. It was owned by a man named Wheeler and how the boys did cheer when they saw it in flames!
MOLASSES COATED STREETS
" 'It was thought at one time that the whole business part of the city was doomed, but the fire was gotten under control finally. A West India brig had come in a few days before, loaded with salt and molasses and had unloaded at the stores on the dock. They were all burned and the molasses ran into the street and all over the dock where the brig was lying, and she took fire several times, it being low tide, before she could be floated across the river. A lumber yard took fire and the lumber was all burned.
" 'I recall that many remarked the next day that the fire was "the best thing that ever happened to Bridgeport" and I think it was so, as nearly all the buildings burned were old and dilapidated'."
The worst of the fire was over at four in the morn- ing but it was not until daylight that the townspeople were able to calculate the extent of their losses. All manner of stock was destroyed beyond recognition; hide and leather goods, iron and cordage supplies, groceries, dry goods, fish, paints, meats, carpets, clothing, drugs and shoes, not to speak of sacks of grain, newly tailored suits and barrels of oysters.
Among the goods destroyed were 800 barrels of flour, 100 barrels of mackerel and large quantities of tea, coffee, sugar and molasses.
Water Street was not rebuilt for some time for the merchants turned their backs on the waterfront and moved farther into town.
Previous to the fire, the principal trade had been carried on in Water Street. Main Street, between Wall and State had commenced to gain a little as a business center, but it could not be compared to Water and State.
The fire of 1833 had removed a number of old landmarks in the vicinity of Wall and Main and had opened the path for the new and better stores which Joseph Robinson, Daniel Sterling and others erected. However, these drew very little trade from the "shore" at Water Street.
The fire of 1845 changed everything, overnight. All the Water Street merchants, particularly in dry goods were compelled to find some haven quickly, in order to resume business. They removed to Main Street and never returned to their old haunts along
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the waterfront. Since that time, Main Street has been the leading retail district.
HAT FACTORY FIRE
The fire of 1877, one of the most gruesome in the history of the city, broke out at midnight, one eve- ning in June, in the hat factory of Glover, Sanford and Sons, south side of Crescent Avenue, and before it had completed its work of destruction, took the lives of eleven young Bridgeport men.
Scathing editorials in New York and New Haven papers criticized Bridgeport for its negligence in providing an adequate water supply for fire emer- gencies and the city was blamed for the preventable deaths of the eleven young men.
No suspicion of possible tragedy entered the mind of Glover Sanford's night watchman as he sat in his little office, reading the paper. Of a sudden, in rushed the watchman from across the street at the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, yelling that the hat factory was on fire. He had sighted the flames from his post across the street.
The Glover Sanford watchman dashed to the third floor and there found that fire had broken out in three places in the mixing room. The alarm was given, the city roused from its sleep and within a few minutes, half the town was jammed into the little street before the burning building.
But let the "Bridgeport Daily Standard" of Friday, June 8, 1877 tell the story. In an article headed "Our Horror" the editor wrote:
"The fire department hurried to the place, No. 2 locating on the corner by the office of the Cartridge Company where she succeeded in getting water. No. 1 stopped at a hydrant near the factory, but, failing to get a stream, was ordered by the Fire Commis- sioner to take up her position at a small pond in the rear of the burning building where, by lowering her suction basket several times and digging a hole, she managed to get enough water for two streams which they threw from 12 to 4 o'clock.
"No. 5 tried the hydrant in front of the factory, found no water, then tried the pond with no better success, after which she went to the lake. While in front of the building a portion of the falling wall narrowly escaped tumbling upon the firemen.
"In a short time the whole of the main building was a sheet of flame which received additional im- petus from the strong draft made by the long build-
ings and the broken windows which were shattered early in the fire. There were two heavy explosions in the building during the fire.
"It was some time before the addition on the west caught and there is little doubt but that with an ade- quate supply of water it might have been saved, the brick walls between it and the main building being twelve inches thick, with the four foot passage between and no communication except by doorways.
"The roof fell in soon after the fire got under good headway and the flames communicated with the lower floors but not until a considerable amount of wool, finished hats, machinery and other property had been taken out by a force of volunteers who worked like tigers to save what they could. .
"The firemen made little headway against the in- creasing fury of the flames, which grew so hot that the steam pumps of the Cartridge Company the other side of the railroad tracks were set to work at wetting down the roofs of that building to prevent them from taking fire.
"The hat factory was also amply provided with fire apparatus, there being hose on every floor, a tank of water and several pumps, one of which, a Baxter steam pump, near the engine, was intended especially for fire use, but it was found impossible to use them owing to a lack of water.
ELEVEN LOSE LIVES
"About a quarter of one o'clock occurred the accident which cost eleven men their lives and gave the community the shock of horror which ran through it when the awful fact became known this morning. Fifteen or twenty men were hard at work in the office endeavoring to remove the safe, when the cry was raised outside, that there was danger. A number of those engaged in the work ran out, Officer Rew, Special Officer Reed and another man being the last three to leave the building alive.
"They had scarcely stepped outside the door be- fore a portion of the end wall of the main building toppled over and fell with a dull, heavy roar upon the roof of the office, crushing it as though it were an egg shell, carrying everything before it, clear to the basement. The fragments took fire and were soon in a roaring blaze, and before long a mass of cinders, smoking timbers and heated brick marked the spot where the unfortunate men lay crushed and mangled beneath them.
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"Seven of the eleven bodies were found very close together, near the safe, and the others were scattered about within a space of ten or fifteen feet. They had evidently been caught by the falling wall while in the act of running from the spot, and lay crushed and doubled up in every conceivable shape and position, when uncovered by the workmen.
When questioned after the fire on the matter of rebuilding, members of the firm said they were un- decided what to do, although one intimated that he "was not at all anxious to rebuild and risk his prop- erty in a city that was careless enough to allow property to burn down for lack of a proper water supply."
At the inquest which followed the fire, one of the bystanders testified that when the firemen finally dragged the hose over to the burning building, "there was not force enough to the water to throw it ten feet." This same witness stated that "the police seemed to have been withdrawn except for two or three specials who could not keep the crowd back." He said the deceased were not members of the fire department, but were citizens who volunteered to save property, and that "the fire department had so few men that they can only go where the hose goes."
Another witness stated that "they couldn't get the stream up to the third story without a ladder."
William E. Marsh, chief of police, in reply to the insinuation that the police department was at fault, answered that "most of the force were guarding rescued property at the time; he thought there was a sufficient number of officers there to do all that was necessary; and the crowd made no trouble except to try to steal; the firemen generally use a police rope, but as they only have 200 feet they could not use it last night as the fire was so large."
Special Policeman Patrick Reed, who was one of those who escaped from the office room before the eleven victims went crashing to their deaths, testified that he "went into the back office and helped Mr. Dart to turn the safe around into the front office: couldn't get it out on account of a desk, so went after an ax to cut a way out; fireman wouldn't let the ax go, but one man went with me with the ax and after cutting a moment went out. Mr. Acker then knocked off a piece of the desk with a plank and I took it and carried it out; the building cracked as I stepped out, and I called to the others to save themselves. . . . I was the last out of the building."
Chief Gerdinier of the fire department, when called upon to explain the inadequate fight put up by the firemen, stated that "had they fifty pounds water pressure, and hydrants complete, they could have confined the fire to the upper floors."
The coroner's jury found "that the supply of water from the hydrants was totally inadequate for the occasion, for had it been sufficient, the fire depart- ment would have stopped the conflagration and thereby prevented the falling of the brick wall which caused their sad deaths."
CRITICISM FROM ALL SIDES
The "New Haven Palladium", the "New York Tribune" and the "New York World" roundly denounced Bridgeport for its callous indifference in the matter of fire protection and adequate water pressure.
Said New Haven:
"It is strange that Bridgeport fails to learn a lesson regarding this same matter of water. The Court- landt block, burned four years ago, a loss of $300,000, might have been saved had the supply of water been adequate; and the same assertion is made concerning the Wheeler and Wilson factory, burned in December, 1875, a loss of $500,000. While the hat factory was burning, the cartridge works opposite were saved only by the company's own steam pump."
The "New York Tribune" said editorially: "there is no excuse for a city like Bridgeport to have made so little provision against fire, and to have permitted the erection of such frail structures as was the factory whose walls fell so readily."
The "New York World" added that "the factory which took fire was so flimsily constructed that the walls would not stand by themselves."
It is curious to note that the Bridgeport paper, in recounting the fire, gave descriptions of the injuries suffered by each victim, in all their gruesome details, describing one man as "George McIntyre, aged 21 recognized by a small pass book in his pocket, his head being entirely gone. It was probably crushed badly and then charred. His right hand was burned off and his body badly burned also."
At the end of the death story, a queer trick of fate, in the hands of a newspaper "make-up" man, in- serted the following "filler:"
"The daisies are filling the fields with their white blossoms."
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DON'T GLOW
THE
THE GASLIGHT ERA
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"D ON'T Blow Out The Gas!"
This sign, neatly printed on cardboard, hung on all the gas jets in Bridgeport hotels during the first few years after the introduction of gas in this city.
The signs were not meant to be funny. Rather they were meant to safeguard the Bridgeporters who, not yet accustomed to the new "fandangled" illumin-
ation, sought to extinguish it after use with the same good breath and blow hitherto effective with the candle and the oil lamp. As a result, asphyxiations were not uncommon.
Bridgeporters greeted the coming of gas with the same opposition and ridicule as did the rest of the world. The use of gas was characterized as ungodly. It was said to be a direct attempt to go contrary to
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the teachings of the Divine Being who made day and night a pre ordained separation of the 24 hour period. Night was meant to be dark, was the contention.
There were those who said that the gas lighting of streets would tend to make people ill for they would walk about the streets at night and catch cold. It was pointed out that lighting the streets with gas was a sure sign of moral depravity for would not drunken- ness and evil of all kinds increase? No longer, would fear of darkness prevail and curb the evil tendencies in mankind!
Horses would be frightened (always the "Horses, horses, horses!") and last but not least, the people themselves did not really want such bright illumina- tion because they figured there would then be no thrill in holidays if brilliant street lighting were a common every day occurrence.
When gas mains were actually laid, the ignorant layman trembled before the new invention because he believed the flames themselves ran hotly and dangerously through the pipes and explosions were probable any moment.
The first gas was made from rosin. It was not the unoffensive product which it is today. The gas was very smelly and gave its experimenters continual headaches. Nevertheless, the new illuminant was successful, so successful in fact, that it was proposed for lighting the president's house. It was said that the dripping of candle grease on the coat tails and gowns of guests at official entertainments in the new White House hastened the introduction of gas illumination.
"GREAT WHITE WAY"
New York had gas some time before Bridgeport. It is interesting to note that when public buildings in the metropolis cautiously began to try out the new illumination in 1828, the theaters were among the foremost experimenters. The Chatham was the first, then Castle Garden, that ever popular home of band music and fireworks. In that year also, William Niblo startled New York and made theatrical history when he used gas to illuminate the letters of his name displayed in front of his theater at Broadway and Price Street. Thus was the "Great White Way" started. The daring feat was the talk of the town for many days.
Gas came to Bridgeport in 1849. In May of that year the state legislature chartered the Bridgeport
Gas Light Company, R. B. Mason, W. P. Burral, Philo Hurd, Hanford Lyon, Horace Nichols and Henry T. Huggins being the corporators. Henry K. Harral was first president and P. C. Calhoun, first treasurer.
The first contract between the new gas company and the city was signed in 1851 and the company agreed to furnish city lighting to the extent of "not more than thirty lamps; also to make such arrange- ments with persons before whose premises the lamps may be placed, for such part of the expense as may be deemed right and proper."
Before the close of the year the company was able to proudly announce that it had 76 private consumers and had furnished the city with 26 public street lamps. Gas works at the time were on Housatonic Avenue.
COULDN'T FIND LEAK
By 1857 the use of gas had become general in Bridgeport. Even the engine houses were illumin- ated with the new light, for we find that gas bills pre- sented to the board of engineers included: No. 2, 80 cents; No. 5, $1.60; Reindeer Hose Co., No. 1, $4.00 and Empire, No. 4, $4.50. The last two bills were taken into serious consideration. An investigation was ordered and Mr. Tarbox, superintendent of the gas works reported that on the night of the 6th of February, "100 feet of gas was consumed by Empire No. 4," but that he could discover no leak in the pipes.
The Citizens' Gas Company, a rival organization, was formed in 1886, with the intent to manufacture and sell gas for fuel only, a gas of lower heat value than the illuminating gas which was at that time be- ing manufactured and sold by the Bridgeport Gas Light Company.
The company was not a success and after a term of years, went into receivership. A sale was ordered by the court and an arrangement was made whereby the Bridgeport Gas Light Company became the owner of what was left of the Citizens' Gas Company. This of course included the works at Howard Avenue and Spruce Street where the Bridgeport Gas Light Company now manufactures its product. Here it makes what is commonly known as "water gas" different from the coal gas it originally produced.
The company's office and salesrooms have been situated in various locations in the city. The present
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building on the southwest corner of Gilbert and Main Streets was erected in 1924. In November of 1934, the company took over the Gas Appliance Exchange.
One billion cubic feet of gas is consumed each year by the Bridgeport district, which includes Bridgeport, Stratford and Fairfield. This is used for domestic purposes such as cooking, water heating, house heating, refrigeration, and for industrial pur- poses in the various factories, and in the commercial fields in restaurants and hotels.
Some 323 miles of main are necessary to deliver this gas to consumers; 41,478 meters keep track of the amount of gas used in the Bridgeport district. George
JB
S. Hawley is president of the Bridgeport Gas Light Company and F. M. Travis is chairman of the board of directors.
Three or four decades ago there were few uses for gas. By 1859, bread toasters, gas furnaces in minia- ture, hatters' irons, laundry stoves, bathroom stoves and gas ovens commenced to be advertised. In 1870, gas was applied to generate steam. Gas was suggested for heating bakers' ovens in 1885. The use of gas for cooking was not general until 1895. In 1915 gas was first used for refrigeration.
Today, there are more than 20,000 different uses for gas.
"LIGHTS STRUNG ON WIRES"
One of the biggest laughs of the century was occasioned by an article in the "New York Herald" by Marshall Fox, who recorded the beginnings of electricity in New York city and described "lights strung on wires".
Al Orr, the Herald's city editor, who ran the story written by Fox, nearly lost his job when Thomas B. Connery, the managing editor, read the article.
"How did this stuff get into the paper, Mr. Orr?" demanded Connery pointing to the offending article. "Lights strung on wires indeed! You've made a laughing stock of the Herald."
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