Swampy's Florida

While at the Pine Castle Pioneer Days this past weekend, the Jacksonville fire of 1901 crept up for one reason or other. Here’s a victim of the fire: the Windsor Hotel, as it was in 1885. The lodging house was one of more than 2,300 structures destroyed by a fire started at  mattress factory and cascaded across 146 blocks of commercial and residential buildings. The fire started around 12:30pm, May 3rd, and roared across the land until finally controlled after 8:30pm. Surprisingly only 4 people are known to have died during what is considered one of the greatest urban infernos in United States history.

This photo is from ‘History of Duval County,: Including Early History of East Florida’, by Pleasant Daniel Gold.
If you would like a copy of this book from Amazon, click here:
https://amzn.to/3KyA75K

This book is part of the Swampy’s Florida history library.