The Fire that Shocked the City
On Thursday, November 23rd, 1916, at about three in the morning, a fire started in the Bijou Theater building, owned by George E. Stiles. The wooden structure abutted the Eastern wall of the Jordan Block. An alarm was sent from the nearby box but failed to sound the bell. By the time Fire Chief Thomas P. Foley was awoken, the fire had spread to the nearby Jordan Hardware Store. Chief Foley rushed to the Bank Street Engine House where he rang the bell by hand, mustering all of Willimantic’s fire companies. As the entire block erupted in flames, William Jordan and his brother Fredrick, along with a host of firemen, rushed into the hardware store. The brothers gained entry to the company office and grabbed their accounting books and documentation. Firemen removed shelves of ammunition from the first floor, and explosive powder from the basement. The Jordan brothers, who owned the nearby Jordan Auto Company, summoned trucks to haul away what goods they could carry. Roy Downer, a young Chronicle reporter and member of the Thread City Cyclers dashed in to save his cycling equipment. The roof collapsed, the falling debris lacerating his scalp. Soon, the structure became too unstable, and the remaining ammunition began to explode in what was described as a flurry of machine gun fire. Onlookers and firemen pulled back to a safe distance as they kept their hoses fixated on the blaze. The glow of the flames could be seen for miles. Flickering sparks showered into the sky, settling on nearby rooftops, igniting a series of small fires. The firemen’s rubber coats became soaked with water, which quickly froze in the frigid temperatures. A slick of ice covered the street. Nine hours later the fire was finally extinguished. The Jordan block had been reduced to a precarious husk of brick and ash.