Before the fire that destroyed a great part of the city of
Jacksonville, Fla., had ceased to burn, the city has practically
been rebuilt. This statement not only describes a building operation
remarkable for rapid execution, but also covers an incident unique in
the experience of firemen.
Jacksonville was almost wiped out by fire on May 3 of last year. An
area of 443 acres, comprising 148 blocks, was swept by the flames, and
property worth at least $15,000,000 was destroyed.
The work of rebuilding on a better and more substantial scale was
started within a week and has since gone on with rapidity unprecedented
in Southern building operations, and now the city is in far better
shape than it was before the fire.
About three weeks ago the clearing up of the last of the ruins was
begun. The laborers doing the work removed three or four inches of the
mass of brick and stones on top, and then found, to their surprise,
that underneath the ruins were still hot.
Smoke began to rise out of the hole they had dug out, and the farther
down they went the hotter became the ruins, and the thicker the smoke.
At last a mass of red hot coals was found, which sprang into flame when
the air reached it.
It had been necessary several times within the year for the fire
department to soak this part of the ruins with water, but it had been
thought for several months that the fire must be out at last.
Alongside new Jacksonville had already sprung into existence. Six
months after the destruction of the city a new one already covered the
greater part of the site.
Within eleven months more than 2,000 buildings were erected, fifty
of them aggregating in cost $2,000,000. And the new Jacksonville is
immeasurably superior to the old.