Readers of the blog are likely familiar with the Old Main fire of 1970, however that is not the only time part of the building burned down. On a blustery Monday morning, April 27, 1891, just before the 8 o’clock bell, screams of “’Normal is afire’” could be heard throughout Whitewater. [1] Students, staff, faculty, and community members all lined the streets to watch as the north half of the building was consumed by flames. [2] The origin of the fire is unknown, since the smoke from the furnaces was “carried off in iron flues inside brick chimneys with air space between them. Mr. Beach, the curator, started the fires in three furnaces at half past six. About an hour later he set out to visit the rooms and see that the temperature was right. Reaching Normal Hall he found it filled with smoke.” [3]
History of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Collection, Anderson Library Archives and Area Research, Anderson Library, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI.
While the building was on fire, bystanders were “[running] in and out, removing every portable object from rooms where it was safe to enter” due to their fondness for the building. [4] Students and staff were throwing items from the third-floor windows, “few attempted to tear up the seats in the Assembly room and broke every one they touched”, “some began to remove doors”, and “others were busy throwing books from the library windows.” [5] One faculty member was seen “frantically searching for his desk” and there was a woman “with one edge of a patch-work quilt drawn over her head and confined under her chin by one hand, while the remaining seven-eighths floated in the wind.” [6]
History of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Collection, Anderson Library Archives and Area Research Center, Anderson Library, Whitewater, WI.
It took the fire department until 11 a.m. to extinguish the fire. By that time, hundreds of items littered the lawn of what would become the UW-Whitewater campus. Parts of the building were deemed safe enough to reenter and so students and staff set to work putting everything back inside. [7] University President Albert Salisbury called for classes to be canceled for the next two days while alternate spaces were found for the displaced classes. One such location was Mrs. Camp’s house on Prairie Street, which was fondly labeled “Normal School Annex.” [8]
History of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Collection, Anderson Library Area of Archives and Research Center, Anderson Library, Whitewater, WI.
Reconstruction of the building began June 16, 1891, during the summer holidays. The fire at Old Main was not forgotten thanks to the efforts of Professor Shutts. He “organized seven fire squads among men after the turn of the century, and in 1906 a regular fire drill was inaugurated.” [9]
[1] H. D. Keyes, “The Fire, April 27, 1891,” in Historical Sketches of the First Quarter Century of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, with a Catalogue of its Graduates and a Records of Their Work, ed. Albert Salisbury (Madison: Tracy, Gibbs and Co., Printers, 1893), 92.
[2] H. D. Keyes, “The Fire, April 27, 1891,” in Historical Sketches of the First Quarter Century of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, with a Catalogue of its Graduates and a Records of Their Work, ed. Albert Salisbury (Madison: Tracy, Gibbs and Co., Printers, 1893), 93.
[3] “The Normal School Building in Flames: Good Work by the Fire Department Saves the Main Structure,” The Whitewater Register, April 20th, 1891.
[4] H. D. Keyes, “The Fire, April 27, 1891,” in Historical Sketches of the First Quarter Century of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, with a Catalogue of its Graduates and a Records of Their Work, ed. Albert Salisbury (Madison: Tracy, Gibbs and Co., Printers, 1893), 93.
[5] H. D. Keyes, “The Fire, April 27, 1891,” in Historical Sketches of the First Quarter Century of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, with a Catalogue of its Graduates and a Records of Their Work, ed. Albert Salisbury (Madison: Tracy, Gibbs and Co., Printers, 1893), 93.
[6] H. D. Keyes, “The Fire, April 27, 1891,” in Historical Sketches of the First Quarter Century of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, with a Catalogue of its Graduates and a Records of Their Work, ed. Albert Salisbury (Madison: Tracy, Gibbs and Co., Printers, 1893), 94.
[7] H. D. Keyes, “The Fire, April 27, 1891,” in Historical Sketches of the First Quarter Century of the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, with a Catalogue of its Graduates and a Records of Their Work, ed. Albert Salisbury (Madison: Tracy, Gibbs and Co., Printers, 1893), 94.
[8] “The Normal School Building in Flames: Good Work by the Fire Department Saves the Main Structure,” The Whitewater Register, April 20th, 1891.
[9] M. Janette Bohi, A History of Wisconsin State University Whitewater 1868-1968 (Whitewater: Whitewater State University Foundation, Inc., 1967), 116.