Valley Girl Views: Williamsport High School Fire, April 4, 1914

The Williamsport High School was destroyed by fire.

On April 4th 1914, the janitor was fumigating the basement when a fire broke out. The flames spread through the building quickly. All of the students exited the building safely, and Mitchell Hartman, the school football coach, led a brigade of boys to help prevent the fire from spreading to nearby residences.

No students were injured in the fire, and the building was scheduled to be vacated soon, as the new school building was close to completion.

A new janitor had been hired that January, and he was "burping out the closets on the boys side. These closets are of an obsolete kind, which are being changed by the school board as fast as possible." Walker, the new janitor, started a fire in the flues and then had gone about other business. The flames, getting to warm, ignited the wooden partitions around the closet and spread from there to the air shafts. Smelling the smoke, Walker came back before the flames got a good start.

The High School, on the corner of West Third & Walnut Streets, was built in 1887.

However, he could not get the fire extinguishers to work. Some claim they were out of order, others that Walker was inexperienced and didn't know how to use them. Before he could call out for help, the entire basement was ablaze with flames roaring up the air shaft.

H.C. Olmstead, who lived next to the school on the east side, alerted the fire company.

The school can be seen on the left in this postcard of West Third Street, Williamsport

"When the firemen reached the building the flames were still at the rear and in the basement being confined to the airshafts, through which they were breaking. The first floor was entirely intact for many minutes, and many people, including High School students, walked on it and some even went upstairs long after the firemen arrived and were fighting. Someone broke in all the windows at the rear and this made a splendid draft which drove the fire, fed by a freshening wind from the west, right through the building. "

A series of smaller fires broke out along the block east of the school, as the sparks landed on nearby roofs. No fireman could be spared, but a squad of high school boys, organized by the football coach, seized hand chemicals from the the hose wagons, and with ladders climbed onto the roof and fought the flames. "The boys ran from house to house, working madly, but successfully."

All of the school records, along with "files collections of relics and souvenirs it's splendid science equipment, and all the valuable books and records" were lost. Early on during the fire, many went up to the science department, and even the main room, but no attempt was made to save any of the records or equipment, because all believed the building would be saved.

The fire department was criticized harshly, with "not a few who bitterly censured the city council for the appointment of the present chief, saying that he was unequal to the task of fighting the flames.

According to the Sun Gazette, "When the department arrived on the scene shortly after the alarm had been turned in, the fire was found to be in the basement, while smoke was pouring out of the upper windows. It is said that the proper place to get at the flames was from the west side, with the truck. Instead, teachers of the school say, their advice was refused and the truck was raised on the south side and water poured in. This drove the fire through to the other side and that, with breaking windows to get a the flames created a draft, which with the heavy wind blowing made a mass of flamed which swept all before it.

Williamsport High School Athletic Field

The school board decided that the High School boys and girls should immediately after the Easter vacation, use the Washington building. The regular pupils would use it from 9am to noon, and the High School students would attend from 12:14 to 4pm.

Seventy of the 475 High School students were scheduled to finish their work within a months time.

Originally the old high school was to be converted into a central grammar school, but after the fire, the structure could not be saved.

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