“IT WAS A TERRIBLE THING TO SEE”
DOWNTOWN DAYTON – Part Seven
J. HARVEY KIRKBRIDE
J. Harvey Kirkbride, a book printer for the Johnson and Watson Company in Dayton, lived at 318 West Fourth Street at the time of the flood. Kirkbride made it to his office at 131 East Third Street that morning, before he became stranded there by the high water.
At 6:30 Tuesday morning we were aroused by people passing down the street telling everyone that the river would soon go over its banks and that they should all prepare for a flood. At that time the water was backing up in front of our house, we living just a square from the lowest point in the downtown district. I waded through water about eighteen inches deep for half a square, reached dry land and made my way downtown. Nothing seemed to be unusual. The people were walking the streets the same as any other day at that hour. I made my way to the office which is about seven squares from home. No water could be seen in either direction from our front door. Thinking that the flood scare did not amount to much, I went to a restaurant and got breakfast. When I returned to the office the porter was on hand and we started to get our merchandise out of the basement to the first floor. This was probably 8:30 and the water was then coming over the levee and rushing down Third Street.
The force of the current came directly across the Library Square and rushed down Third Street. After we had waded around up to our waists trying to take books and valuable papers to the second floor, we gave up and decided it was of no use to continue salvage operations. We went to the front window on the second floor that we might see the current carrying away the debris as it passed our building. We saw a boy, clutching a piece of wood, come whirling around from St. Clair Street on to Third. He got footing in front of our place in the eddy and we helped him in, took him up stairs, rubbed him with towels, gave him a stimulant, and the only clothes we had to offer him, which was my cravenette.
The water was rising very rapidly at the rate of about one inch a minute. We noticed the proprietor of the moving picture show immediately across the street from us, in the reel room. He seemed to be quite content the first few hours, but after the water had reached a level of about seven feet, he showed the distress sign by putting his head and shoulders out of the window of the reel room and making wild gesticulations. The rush of water on that side of the street was so ferocious that our calls to the men on the second floor of the building adjoining the moving picture show, could not be heard. We megaphoned to them and by signaling, managed to let them know that the man was in distress. One of them crawled down on the cornice and threw a rope to him. He tied it around his body below the arms and jumped into the water. Four men at the other end of the rope, by very skillful maneuvers which were almost entirely directed by us from across the way, managed to pull him through the window. We slept the est of the morning. About two o’clock in the afternoon the walls of the drug store on the corner fell. This being only about seventy feet from our building, we thought it best to move. We climbed to the fourth story by means of a ladder, crawled up through the hatch to the roof. We found that all the people in our square had done the same thing. Our building being the first one of the four-story buildings on the square, we did a good deal of rescuing people in the lower buildings between us and the corner, who had crawled to the roofs. By means of a rope we pulled two women and five men off of the roof of a building west of us, we rescued a man, wife and little boy, who were standing on a very low shed, the peak of which was just out of the water. The building on which they stood was about fifteen feet from the foot of the building on which we were standing. We threw a rope to them and the man tied it around his wife’s body just under the arms and about ten of us men on the roof managed to pull her up to the building. There was a stretch of fifteen feet over which she had to swing before we could pull her up. Not being accustomed to such gymnastics, she bruised herself badly by striking against the wall. But the man and little boy profited by her experience and were able to break the force of the blow with their feet. It continued to rain the rest of the day and we killed time by walking around on the roofs of the nine buildings which are all one level. One building was occupied by the Kiefaber Company, Commission Merchants, where we found lots of apples and grapefruit. The W. L. Adamson Company, wholesale grocers, supplied us with canned goods and tobacco. In Evans Brothers’ wholesale drug house we secured playing cards and playing on boxes and benches, during the rain, helped to pass the time away.
At 6:00 in the evening we all went to sleep installing ourselves in the Chas. A. Cooper Company’s building on the second floor where they kept a large supply of lap robes and horse blankets. The display tables which extended the length of the building, we made use of as beds. There were five women, one boy about twelve years old, and twenty-two men. Two men formed the lookout and every hour measured the rising stage of water. The highest stage was reached at twelve o’clock Tuesday night. This was eight feet and eight inches on the floor of our building. This meant about eleven feet on Third Street.
Our supply of drinking water was obtained from three galvanized iron tubs, which we placed on the roof. These three tubs in about four hours would catch a bucket of water.
On Wednesday, we all rose early, had our breakfast of canned goods of every description and the men went to the roofs for the morning smoke regardless of the pouring rain. Our rule was “No Smoking Below the Roof.” About one o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, those in the front of the store looking out a window noticed a fire which originated in the drug store on the corner of Third and St. Clair Streets. There was a high wind blowing from the north and east which fanned the fire and it was only a matter of a few minutes until the two buildings on the corner were ablaze. Everybody went to the roof. I closed the hatches of the nine buildings to make sure that the fire would not jump. I knew there were firewalls between these buildings and that unless we gave the fire a good opportunity, it would be rather slow in reaching us. We all moved west over the roofs to the last one of the four-story buildings which was occupied by Sol Rauh & Sons Company. There we went down through the hatch and down the stairs to the second floor, leaving the building from the rear window. By climbing around on low roofs, soaked with water, we got into the Beckel Building, occupied by the Fourth National Bank, which is on the corner and just on block from where the fire started. It was very cold and there were but few of us who had wraps or overcoats. Nearly every one wore blankets taken from the Chas. Cooper Company. We also carried provisions and water along with us. The fire gained headway rapidly and one at a time the buildings caught, the fire moving directly toward us. The fire walls seemed to have no resistance whatever but I learned later that it traveled along the cornice from building to building and the strong wind moved it right in and flames would curl around the walls, break the windows and then the suction would draw the flames inside. We thought it best to move north of Jefferson Street toward the river, as we would gain higher ground by going in that direction. We left the Fourth National Bank Building, crawled over the roof of the Traction Depot, into the side entrance of a building and traveled north on the cornices to the Simms Building on the corner of the alley. We could not cross the alley, the water being probably eght feet deep. The current was strong so that it was impossible for any one to swim. By means of a rope we got the women across the alley with provisions and water. The men followed. We reached Groeweg’s bindery from the window in the south side and again made our way north by passing from building to building around the cornices. Where the cornices were not on a level, we stretched a rope from window to window as a hold, and where they were unusually dangerous we stretched two ropes and the women crawled between them. When we reached the Johnson Printing Company, we were able to walk with perfect ease, the cornice being wider. We passed through the printing establishment to the rear window and then by means of a ladder reached the low roofs of out buildings and entered a residence on Second Street. Of course, as we traveled from the bank-building north, all the places being occupied and everybody wishing to reach safety, there were about seventy-five who were in this residence. The weight being so great, the men were fearful that it might collapse. By means of a ladder, we overflowed into Geiger’s residence which was the next door east. From there we took to the water, made our way across Second Street, some going north and some west to the Rike-Kumler building. The water on Second Street was then up to our shoulders. The current was so strong that we would not have been able to cross Second Street had it not been for the rope which we managed to get across and had securely fastened at each end.
It was rather hard to keep track of the time and I noticed that my watch had stopped at twenty minutes after six. We had been nearly six hours and had only traveled two and one-half squares. The fire had by this time burned the buildings which we had first occupied and was gradually traveling toward us. Most of the low buildings in the rear and up to the alley were ablaze. Five of us spent the night at the Iddings residence at the corner of First and Jefferson Streets. We felt safe here as we were one square away from the burning block and the wind was blowing away from us.
The next morning at six o’clock, we left Iddings and waded through the water across Jefferson Street, west on First to the Victoria Theatre, then north on Main Street and reached dry land in front of the Peckham garage on Main Street, which is about the highest point in the downtown district. There was water east, west and south and the river on the north. I went to the home of J. W. Johnson on Monument Avenue where I changed my clothes and started to look for food and water. It was very cold, snow was falling and everyone was in distress. The gas had not been turned on, of course, and few people had coal and no alcohol at the drug stores. The first warm food we had we got at a soup house temporarily installed at the engine house. We waited our turn in line which was fully a square long.
JOHN A. BELL
John A. Bell was division plant manager for the Central Union Telephone Company. Realizing he had the last functioning line of communication going out of Dayton, he was determined to remain at his post as long as possible.
Bell’s last words to the office of Governor Cox was that the fires in Dayton had taken a new start, breaking out in many places and getting so near to the telephone building that he would have to leave.
I want to say goodbye. I am going to make an attempt to escape, but may meet the fate of great numbers of others who have only escaped from the water to be burned to death.
I can see buildings all around me in flames. People running back and forth, waving their hands and crying for help, but no one can save them. No boat can live in the awful currents of water rushing between the buildings. Men, women and children in the path of the flames are doomed.
No one can estimate the number of the dead. Thousands are in the midst of these torrents and no one may ever know how many have died. Good-bye.
Luckily, Bell managed to escape to safety. Others were not so lucky. Although the number of flood victims that “officially” died in Montgomery County total less than one hundred, a number of bodies were washed down river and never recovered. Some people died days or weeks later due to exertions or stress that occurred from being trapped on roofs or attics without adequate clothing or food.
Return to "Through Flood, Through Fire" Home Page
