LEWISTON — The recent major fires in Lewiston trigger memories of similar near misses and actual catastrophes in the Twin Cities.
It has been nearly 25 years since one of the city’s biggest multi-unit blazes took place.
— In the frigid early-morning hours of Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 1989, flames ripped through half-a-block of buildings on Walnut Street between Bartlett and Horton streets. Burning out of control for three hours, the fire destroyed five apartment buildings, one of which housed the popular Friend’s Deli. That business, owned by Guy Nadeau, had been gutted by fire about 40 years earlier when it was a grocery store owned by his parents.
An 80-year-old woman was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in critical condition after suffering a heart attack at the fire scene, and the fire left 55 people homeless.
— Danger of fire in the crowded tenement neighborhood known as “Little Canada” near the Bernard Lown Peace Bridge, then called the South Bridge, has always held the threat of disaster by fire. On Nov. 23, 1974, a five-story, vacant building at 27 Cedar St. went up in flames. For two hours, the stubborn fire burned out of control.
Fire Chief Reginald A. Doucette said flames were everywhere. “They were coming out of the second, third, fourth and fifth floors, and the roof,” he said.
Doucette said the first duty of his men was to protect surrounding buildings with a wall of water.
“When we get a fire like this, we try to save other buildings first,” he said. “Then we aim at the fire. What’s burned is burned.”
In all, tenants of 60 to 80 nearby apartments in nine or 10 buildings were evacuated.
— Apartment building fires displace lots of people, but a hotel fire can also threaten dozens of lives. One such event was the massive blaze that destroyed the Whitehall Hotel in Auburn on Oct. 25, 1940.
“White, searing flames roared down the long corridors of the Whitehall Hotel early this morning and when the fire departments of Lewiston and Auburn had finished their work, the toppling walls of the seven-story building still housed the bodies of two persons,” reported a front-page story in the Lewiston Evening Journal.
“Escapes that were almost miraculous were recounted by many of the hotel’s 72 guests,” the story said.
Fifteen years before that fire, Auburn city government and owners of the building, which was then known as Eureka Apartments, clashed over the proposed addition of three top stories to the original four-and-a-half-story structure.
The newspaper carried spectacular photo coverage of the disaster.
Whitehall Hotel was beside the railroad crossing on Court Street, across from the Auburn Public Library.
The danger of many fires has been minimized over the years as the quality and efficiency of firefighting equipment increased. It’s difficult to imagine the days of horse-drawn apparatus when the downtown areas of the Twin Cities were packed with wooden buildings that presented constant danger of catastrophic fires.
— Ten days before Christmas 1878, fire struck a tenement in the Dunlap Block on Lisbon Street in downtown Lewiston. Twenty-five people were left homeless.
A reporter for the Lewiston Saturday Journal wrote, “The city teams were not a great distance from the engine house and the steamers were promptly on hand. In about ten or fifteen minutes from the first stroke of the bell, the Androscoggin steamer had a good stream on the fire. The department worked with its usual skill and efficiency. The supply of water was good, and in an hour the fire was completely under control. The adjoining buildings were well wet down and suffered small damage.”
The account noted, “Three women were seen at a back window in the third story enveloped in smoke and hysterical with fright. Mr. G.T. Jordan, a roomer in the building, entered the apartment on his hands and knees, and dragged them out over the floor.”
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