Tragedies and Disasters

PAINTSVILLE DOWNTOWN ABLAZE

On May 28, 1914, Paintsville Herald Editor and Publisher Charles A. Kirk wrote
the following, “What we need now is water works. It would be a good investment His conclusions were not surprising. Only three days earlier, Sunday, May 25, a
midnight fire destroyed much of Paintsville’s mid-town business district. More than a
dozen businesses on both sides of College Street, between Main and Second, were
destroyed in the most destructive conflagration in the town’s history.

The disastrous fire apparently began about 11:00 p.m. in the store of J. F. Deal
on Main Street. “The fire spread rapidly, first into the old Brown property adjoining the Deal store, then across the (Main) street into the old Preston property and from there into the Kirk property in the rear,” Kirk wrote.

The Deal store was located across from Paintsville National Bank on Main Street.
By the time the fire was discovered it was a raging inferno, impossible to stop in a
community with no public water system and no fire fighting apparatus. A crowd quickly gathered and worked to save the contents of buildings not yet involved, according to the Herald.

To envision the downtown at that time, imagine wooden frame buildings facing
College Street where Paul Pack’s County Attorney’s Office is northward to the Perry, Miller & Daniels Law Office with similar frame buildings occupying what is now the City Parking Lot. By the time the devastating fire was extinguished early the following day, the two block area looked as if it had been leveled by a bomb. Rubble and fire debris were all that was left of the buildings and the merchandise and equipment they contained.

Businesses destroyed by the flames included the J. F. Deal Store, Rennie Daniel,
Forrest Preston, a barber and father of the city’s future mayor Ralph “Tiny” Preston,
Della Preston, a barber shop, Mart Montgomery, another barber, N. K. Williams, yet another barber, N. Albert, clothing store, J. F. Daniel harness shop, the office of Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph, and Wood Brothers, photographers. Fortunately, there were no reports of injuries.

Property owners who suffered losses were Paul Hager, George Hager, Preston
heirs and Mrs. Edna Kirk, at one time Paintsville’s first woman postmistress. Although the fire did not reach Paintsville National Bank, the heat did break the glass in the bank’s front windows. Similarly, the plate glass front of what was then the
Oppenheimer & Flax Store (later Frail’s Department Store) was shattered by the intense heat from across Main Street.

The fire was eventually checked within a few feet of Edna Kirk’s residence as a two-story business building next door burned itself out.

Paintsville has seen many major fires since May 1914, most notable were the fires
which gutted Big Sandy Drug on Christmas Eve of 1945, Maggard Furniture on Second Street, Meek Appliances on Second Street, the Herald Hotel building at Court and Second Streets and Maggard & Joseph (formerly the Rule or Howard Hotel) on Main Street. However, none covered as large an area as did the fire of 1914.

Fortunately, within the next decade Paintsville had a water system and an
effective volunteer fire department to assist in battling future blazes.