More than 1,000 people taking a pleasure trip on New York City’s
East River were drowned or burned to death when a fire swept
through the boat. This was one of the United States’ worst
maritime disasters.

The riverboat-style steamer General Slocum was built in 1890
and used mostly as a vehicle for taking large groups on day
outings. On June 15, the St. Mark’s German Lutheran Church
assembled a group of 1,360 people, mostly children and teachers,
for their annual Sunday School picnic.

The picnic was to take place at Locust Point in the Bronx after
a cruise up the East River on the General Slocum.

At about 9 a.m., the dangerously overcrowded boat left its dock
in Manhattan with Captain William Van Schaik in charge. As the
boat passed 83rd Street, accounts indicate that a child spotted
a fire in a storeroom.

On June 6, 1889, a fire ignited in a Seattle woodworking shop and
swept through some 100 acres, destroying much of the city’s
business district and waterfront.

The Great Seattle Fire culminates in losses estimated at $20 million
—and served as a turning point in the city’s history.

The fire started shortly after 2:30 p.m. when a pot of heated glue at
Victor Clairmont’s woodworking shop in the Pontius Building on
Front Street (now First Avenue) and Madison Avenue burst into
flames.

In one of the darkest moments of America’s industrial history,
the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City
burned, killing 146 workers, on March 25, 1911. The tragedy
led to the development of a series of laws and regulations
that better protected the safety of factory workers.     

The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, 
It was a sweatshop in every sense of the word: a cramped
space lined with workstations and packed with immigrant
workers, mostly teenage women who did not speak English. 
 
    
    

CARLATA BRADLEY

   
In Baltimore, Maryland, a small fire in the business district is
wind-whipped into an uncontrollable conflagration that engulfs
a large portion of the city by evening. The fire is believed to have
been started by a discarded cigarette in the basement of the
Hurst Building.

Miraculously, official reports said no lives were lost—although
some reports did claim one man perished—and Baltimore’s
domed City Hall, built in 1867, was preserved.

The Baltimore fire was deemed to be the nations third worst fire,
after the Chicago Fire and the San Francisco Fire following the earthquake.

The John E. Hurst Building.

It was a 6 story dry goods company, almost everything inside
was flammable. The other firemen inside were able to escape
without injury, however, the lead horse for Engine 15 was
severely burned.

The remains of the Hurst Building. One of the teams of horses used to pull the engines is visible on the left.

A 1 ton, white Percheron draft horse, named Goliath, the lead
of the three horse team, was pulling the Hale Water Tower into
position on Liberty Street when the building exploded.

Goliath survived his injuries, although he spent 6 months under
the vets care. He went back to being a fire horse, but became a
favorite with children at parades.