The South Bend Christmas Fire of 1878

Remembering the Silent Night that wasn't, more than 140 years ago

BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED NOVEMBER 23, 2024

It's Christmas Eve 1878, five degrees below zero and with a howling wind making conditions even more miserable. Children have been tucked in and their parents aren't far behind them. It's 10:00 p.m., and Christmas is just two hours away.

That's when the dull red glare is first spotted in the second and third story windows over Gillen's restaurant near the corner of Main and Washington Streets. The shrieks of “fire!” come first, followed closely by the clanging of the fire bell. Firemen arrive quickly, but by the time they make the scene, the flames have begun to spread, eventually claiming six buildings and swallowing whole businesses with it, including the restaurant, a grocery, a photography studio, a dentist office, and a pair of cigar factories.

Firemen worked through the night in the frigid conditions, intermittently discovering that their hands had frozen to the nozzles of the hoses they were directing. But then these were the lucky ones. Firefighter Frank Biddle had gotten too close to the flow of water and after standing in one place for too long, he found himself frozen to the roof of a building where he had to be chopped loose by his comrades.

It was chaos on the ground as the clock ticked toward four in the morning. Helpful bystanders returned with rifles and shotguns eager to help in any way that they could. Isaac Steeley and Manley Andrews took their spots on the ground below, leveled their rifles and began shooting toward the flames, shattering upstairs windows so that firefighters could direct their spray directly into the conflagration.

J.D. and James Oliver dashed back and forth between the fiery scene and their own factories, delivering new hoses, buckets, and anything they could find that might help the frozen and exhausted fire crew. By seven-in-the-morning, the fire had been extinguished. It had been nine hours. The sun would rise soon. The firefighters had worked through the night. It was Christmas morning.

But it was the flames that took the victory, decimating six buildings and ruining the entire block.

 

 

The devastation might have felt total. The conflagration was the most destructive fire in the history of South Bend. The newspaper reported tenuously that no one had perished in the flames, but they did so with bated breath, issuing a macabre assurance to readers that at least some of the brave firefighters would be dead soon from exposure.

That last part never came to pass.

Maybe in the end, it was a kind of Christmas miracle. South Bend's wildest blaze claimed no victims, only buildings.

South Bend's 1878 Christmas fire remains the most destructive blaze in the history of the city, but it goes without saying that it is nowhere near its deadliest.

Learn more about the 1878 Christmas fire in Episode 5 of A Bend In Time.

Aaron Helman is an author, historian and adventurer from South Bend. You may have seen him around South Bend drinking coffee. Learn more about his work or check out his books at aaronhelman.com.