Norfolk, Virginia, USA
1902 - NORFOLK'S DISASTROUS FIRE - Virginia Town Suffered $500,000 Loss in Destruction of Main Hotel and Business Block

NORFOLK, Va., Jan. 31 — The Atlantic Hotel, the Columbia Office Building, which adjoined the hotel, the Albemarle Flats and a block of stores in the centre of the city were destroyed early this morning by the most destructive fire that Norfolk has had in thirty years.

The damage is estimated at $500,000. The fire had its origin in the Columbia Building, a six-story structure, and was discovered at 1:55 o'clock this morning. Shortly afterward 1,000 gallons of whisky stored in the building exploded, tearing out the front wall, and fifteen minutes later the north wall, which was over seventy-five feet high, fell in, annihilating the home of the fashionable Virginia Club, adjoining on the north.

It was evident early that the Atlantic Hotel was doomed. About three hundred guests and employees in the hotel were aroused, and, so far as is known, all escaped. J. C. Ready of Brooklyn, however, had a narrow escape. The flames next spread to the five-story Albemarle apartment house, and then extended to the block facing the Atlantic and running from Plume to Main Street. Within an hour they were in ruins. Other property nearby was threatened, but the wind changed about 4 o'clock, and the fire after that was under control.

The loss of the owners of the Atlantic Hotel is about $250,000, covered by insurance, and of the Columbia buildings, $100,000, on which there was $35,000 insurance.

Col. J. Hull Davidson, who conducted the American Cafe at the Paris
Exposition, is the lessee of the Atlantic Hotel. Others who suffered large losses were the Southern, Baltimore and Ohio, and Norfolk and Western Railways; Nottingham & Wrenn, wood and coal dealers; the Equitable Life Assurance Company.

Dodson's drug store, Vermillion's liquor store, and Salomonsky's tailoring establishment, all with offices in the Atlantic Hotel Building, and C. R. Brown & Nedds, D. Lowenberg, the owner, and numerous professional firms, who had offices in the Columbia Building. Ten on the block were destroyed with the Albemarle Flats, including Johnston's china store, Gary & Shipp. tailors: Hatch & Dean, furnishers: Motter, Dewitt & Co., brokers; Stephenson & Taylor, brokers; the Norfolk and Western foreign freight department, and the office of the Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia Air Line.

The New York Times
New York, New York
February 1, 1902

Visit Norfolk, Virginia, USA
Discover the people who lived there, the places they visited and the stories they shared.