On the windy morning of May 17, 1849, the steamboat White Cloud docked at St. Louis’ crowded port. Cholera was ravaging the city, and the ship needed to be fumigated to prevent the disease’s further spread. A master aboard the boat had moved all of the mattresses to the deck to disinfect, but on this gusty day, a stray spark from a passing ship landed on the cushions and set them ablaze. The small fire was put out and the salvaged mattresses were returned to the quarters—a benign act that would have enormous consequences for St. Louis.
The White Cloud’s cabins caught fire shortly before 10 that night, as a persistent ember in one of those mattresses smoldered and eventually began to burn. Soon, the fire engulfed the entire port. Flying sparks landed on the levee, where flammable wares, such as lumber, furs, and lead, erupted in flames. The blaze spread and swallowed block after block.
Thomas Targee, captain of Missouri Fire Company No. 5, quickly hatched a heroic plan. To stop the conflagration’s creep, Targee created a counter fire by using powder kegs to blow up a line of buildings to the east of the Old Courthouse.
The plan worked. The toppled buildings kept the fire from spreading. Targee, though, did not live to see the success; he was caught in an explosion and killed instantly while trying to level another building. Miraculously, Targee was one of only three confirmed casualties from an event that claimed 15 square blocks, more than 400 buildings, and 23 steamers. Early the next morning, a westerly wind ushered the flames back toward the riverbank, where they burned out.
Although it eviscerated the city, the fire helped St. Louis reimagine itself with a distinctly American vision, according to Adam Arenson’s book The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War. City leaders saw the rebuilding of the city as a way to accelerate a movement to make St. Louis the gateway to the new American west. A thriving new downtown commercial district replaced the tenements and French-colonial buildings. Streets were widened. A newly instituted building code called for the use of fire-resistant materials, including plenty of brick. The fire had sparked a profound transformation.
“People began to see the fire as a boon to the city,” Charles van Ravenswaay, the Missouri Historical Society’s former director wrote in his book Saint Louis: An Informal History of the City and its People. “Old St. Louis—the narrow streets of Laclede, the historic buildings, the stifling barrier to progress—had been swept away in one sacrificial pyre. Who could doubt that from these ashes a new and mightier city would rise?”
A Proud Legacy
The words “Justifiably Proud” are prominently featured on the crest of the St. Louis Fire Department, which is recognized as the second-oldest paid fire department in the country. As St. Louis worked to modernize its cityscape in the years after the Great Fire of 1849, it established a full-time fire company in 1857. During its 166 years of service, the St. Louis Fire Department was also among the first in the nation to use a 100-foot aerial ladder and to establish an academy for training recruits.
