The 1947 Downtown Walgreens Drugstore Fire
By Dennis Wolf
On March 6, 1947, a four-alarm fire destroyed the Walgreens Drug Store at 64 South Main Street on the northeast corner of South Main Street and Union Avenue. The building consisted of what was once three separate occupancies sharing common walls. The building was four stories tall with a basement, made of ordinary wood-joist construction, and was not sprinkler protected. The stairwells were open from the basement to the top floor.[i]
Before becoming a Walgreens, over the years the building housed the Cotton States Hotel, a Piggly Wiggly, and many other businesses. In a bit of Memphis history, it was widely known that Jesse L. Shumaker and J. G. (Poker Pete) Grant ran a gambling operation in the part of the hotel above the space Walgreens would eventually occupy. The operation even had its own entrance at 114 Union. This was when Memphis was “wide-open” and police looked the other way at such activities.
In an interesting aside about the hotel, Shumaker and Grant’s gambling operation must have been quite profitable, as it was robbed three times in April 1936.[ii] A crap game at the hotel was robbed twice on the same day on May 2, 1936. Two brothers, Crosby and Winford Sparks, were arrested, convicted, and sent to prison for that crime.[iii] In December 1937, Governor Gordon Brown pardoned Crosby and Winford Sparks, who were serving time for that crime. The governor issued the pardon because “the brothers were victims of a confidence game run under the protection of the Memphis organization.”[iv] This was even after Crosby Sparks escaped from prison in June 1937.[v] Apparently prison time and a pardon did not reform Crosby Sparks, because on January 4, 1938, he got into a high-speed chase with the Missouri Highway Patrol in Kennett, exchanging gunfire during the chase. Sparks car was shot up and he was captured unhurt, except for a small nick on his left ear.[vi]
Figure 1 shows the building diagram and area where the fire occurred before the fire and before it became a Walgreens. The three separate occupancies that made up the building are evident. The figure is from the 1897 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map and shows the vicinity of the fire. The fire department headquarters station is one block (approximately 500 feet) west of the fire building.
Figure 2 is an undated photo of the installation of streetcar tracks on Main Street. An estimate is that this photo was taken before 1908, because the last time Joseph Goodman Jewelers appears in the city directory is 1907. From 1908 forward, the space was occupied by Julius Goodman until a different tenant moved in. The building is occupied by several others businesses, too.
Figure 3 is a J. C, Coovert photo he took in 1912. The view is looking north on Main Street from Union Avenue. The building involved in the fire is on the right side of the photo. The three separate occupancies in the building are clearly visible, and they are: H. A. Carrol Paint Company at 64 South Main, Gerstel Morris Clothing at 66 South Main, and Julius Goodman Jewelers at 70 South Main. The photo shows how close the exposure buildings were to the fire building.
Figure 4 is a colorized photo from 1944 looking north on South Main Street from the intersection of Union Avenue. The Walgreens is on the right, and the sign for the Lawrence Furniture Company is clearly visible.
Figure 4 is a colorized photo from 1944 looking north on South Main Street from the intersection of Union Avenue. The Walgreens is on the right, and the sign for the Lawrence Furniture Company is clearly visible.
At the time of the fire, the drugstore occupied the first floor and basement, and the top three floors were completely vacant. The manager of the Walgreens store in Memphis, F. D. Morgan, gave a preliminary estimate that the loss in stock was $100,000, with a $125,000 loss in fixtures. The loss of the building was estimated to be $250,000, thus making the total loss $500,000 ($7,077,669 in 2024 dollars).[xi]
Figure 5 shows the Walgreens space, highlighted in yellow, and the three exposures to the north, at the time of the fire. The alley on the east side of the building was 25-feet wide, so the buildings to the east of Walgreens were also exposures that had to be protected.
The fire was discovered by two charwomen (a woman hired to do cleaning or similar work, usually in a large building[xii]) who were locked in the building overnight. They first smelled something burning, and then noticed smoke in the rear of the building. They thought it might be coming from the kitchen. They went to the kitchen, turned off the gas stove, and saw that the smoke was coming from the basement.[xiii] They said that the smoke got thicker and the lights in the store started to flicker. The estimated time of discovery was 3:30 a.m.[xiv]
There was also a conflicting account of how the charwomen attempted to report the fire. The women called the assistant manager, Leonard Parker, at his home.[xv] The women also said that the used the store phone to call the fire department, but said that they could not get the operator to answer. They then ran to the front door and pounded on the door to get the attention of two men who were passing by. They told the men to call the fire department and then they smashed their way out through the front doors.
There was some disagreement over whether there was a delay in the alarm. Chief Sullivan said “there was PLENTY of delay,”[xvi] and that the charwomen should have called the fire department immediately. The fire department said their first knowledge of the fire came when watchman at the headquarters station one block west of the fire building saw smoke in the area of Union and Main. Two firemen were sent to investigate. Seconds later, at 3:55 a.m., an alarm was received via a telephone call from an unknown caller reporting the fire, and from a box alarm.
A total of twenty-three fire apparatus, including the Water Tower, and 150 firefighters responded. The first alarm response was four engines and two trucks. The second alarm was called for at 4:02 a.m. and brought four engines and three trucks. The third alarm was sounded at 4:14, the fourth alarm was called for at 4:45 a.m., and a special call was made at 4:47 a.m. The additional alarms brought seven more engines and most of the city’s firefighting equipment to the scene.[xvii]
The fire was commanded by Fire Chief Connie O’Sullivan and five assistant chiefs. Chief Sullivan observed that, “In a few minutes the entire building, from basement to roof, was a roaring furnace, flames belching from its windows and its fire escapes almost red hot.”[xviii] At this point, the priority was to protect exposures.
The first apparatus to arrive were Engine 9, commanded by Captain Arthur J. Rivalto, and Engine 5, led by Captain Ike Smith. They found heavy fire coming from the basement and extending to the upper floors by the freight elevator shaft. They laid handlines through the front doors into the basement. Within minutes, fire and smoke conditions worsened and they were driven from the basement. As they exited the building, they said they could hear drugs and chemicals exploding and smell the acrid fumes.
Firefighters from Engine 1 and Truck 2 in the rear of the building broke through the locked metal fire doors with battering rams. Chief Sullivan ordered the flooding of the Walgreens basement to prevent the fire from spreading. Firefighters advanced flood lines into the basement and, after pulling the sheet-metal covings off the windows, attacked the fire through rear windows. The basements of these building were flooded from the firefighting efforts, and firefighters worked diligently to pump five-feet of water from the basements after the fire was out.
The efforts of the firefighters, and a five-foot thick firewall between Walgreens and the adjoining buildings to the north, saved the Cook & Love Shoe Store at 62 South Main, the Dreifus Jewelry Store at 60 South Main, and the Lawrence Furniture Company at 56-58 South Main. The Salvage Corp threw salvage covers over the stock in these buildings. Firefighters were stationed on the upper floors of the Dreifus Jewelers and the Lawrence Furniture Company for a fire watch. The police department posted officers at the Dreifus Jewelry Store to prevent looting.[xix]
The smoke was so thick that some guests at the Peabody Hotel thought the hotel was on fire. Several partially dressed men and women were in the process of evacuating the hotel when hotel staff reassured them that the hotel was not on fire.[xx] Hundreds of spectators watched the fire, and the smoke and flames could be seen for miles.[xxi]
The main floor collapsed into the basement. Part of the roof caved in at 6:00 a.m., but the second and third floors did not cave in, which prevented the front of the building from falling onto Main Street.
The store’s safe fell through the floor to the basement. The safe was recovered on March 7 and opened. The money inside was in good condition but waterlogged.[xxii]
During the fire, in what could have been a firefighter fatality, a firefighter fell out an upper story window and plunged toward the ground. His partner grabbed him and helped him back in the building. A photographer for the Memphis Press-Scimitar caught the event, and it is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 12 shows two chief officers discussing firefighting tactics. The person on the right is Fire Chief Connie O’Sullivan. The doorway in the left side of the photo, where two firefighters are advancing a handline into the building, has the numbers 114 above it. This was the entrance that led to the gambling operation when the Cotton States Hotel was there. The two firefighters advancing the line into the building are engine company personnel. The lighter colored squares on their backs are a second layer of canvas. The breathing apparatus of the day was a canister mask that used a chemical reaction to provide breathable air. The reaction created heat, and the square of canvas was an extra layer of protection from heat between the canister, which was worn on the back, and the firefighter.
At one time, 25 hose streams were in use. Figures 9 and 10 show some of those streams in use. The white flag with the red cross (seen in Figure 9) was hung from the streetcar support lines to help people on the street locate a pharmacy. The fire was reported under control at 6:30 a.m. At 8:00 a.m., ten streams were still being played on the ruins to control hotspots and effect complete extinguishment. The hose lines laid across Union Avenue were taken up at 12:10 p.m. on March 7, but firefighters were still using other lines on the ruins. The final lines were taken up at 1:30 p.m.
In a bit of dangerous “you can’t make this stuff up” during the fire, Mr. Fred Simmons, a 26-year-old man who said he was a volunteer firefighter back home in Alabama, tried several times to climb the ladder on Truck 5. He slipped once, but caught his arm on the fire hose and slid to the ground [xxxii]. District Chief Baugh ordered his arrest on drunkenness charges. When question as to what he was doing, Simmons said “I thought I could show Memphis firemen a thing or two.” [xxxiii] The next day in court, Simmons admitted that he had no firefighting experience. Judge Perry Sellers dismissed the drunkenness charges on the condition that the man take the next bus back home. [xxxiv]
Fire investigators determined that the fire definitely started in the basement in either the furnace room or storage rooms. Mr. Parker said that he had cut the gas boilers to the furnace off at 8:30 p.m. on the 5th, as the building was too warm. Mr. Parker, said that no one had been in the basement storerooms since 6:30 p.m. on March 5. [xxxv] Assistant Fire Marshal R. J. Maynard theorized that the fire could have been started by a discarded cigarette, [xxxvi] in spite of the fact that Memphis had an ordinance that prohibited smoking in department stores. [xxxvii]
On March 7, the four owners of the store, William W. Goodman, Sr., Charles Goodman, Abe Goodman, and Abe Plough, announced that they would rebuild the Walgreens at that location, providing a store that would be “one of the most modern in the South.” [xxxviii[ They anticipated that whatever portions of the structure could not be salvaged would be torn down and a completely new building would replace it.
The Walgreens at 64 South Main employed 225 people. The company temporarily transferred all of these employees to other Memphis Walgreens, and no one lost their job because of the fire.
Abe Plough was very grateful for the work the fire department did in preventing the spread of the fire. He sent a letter (Figure 15) praising the “wonderful efficiency, stamina and bravery” of the firefighters to Chief Sullivan, and enclosed a check for $1,000 ($13,099 in 2024 dollars) for the Fireman’s Relief Fund, which provided financial assistance to injured firefighters.
City Building Inspector Sam L. Stephenson determined that the remaining walls and building components were too damaged to salvage and that the building needed to be demolished. It was announced on March 28 that a demolition and construction contract had been awarded to the Fred J. Sexton Company. The new building was to be a “modern, fire-proof building.” The estimated cost for construction was $500,000 ($6,549,046 in 2024 dollars).[xxxix] Figure 16 is from a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map and shows the building that was built in 1948.
On June 26, 1947, it was announced that the State Construction Committee had approved the construction of a new Walgreens store on the site of the old store. The estimated construction cost was $269,880 ($3,820,243 in 2024 dollars).[xli]
The new Walgreens had a soft opening at 4:00 p.m. on December 9, 1948, and opened for business at 7:30 a.m. on Friday, December 10, 1948, in time for the holiday season.[xlii] The new building was three stories tall with a basement, and contained 40,786 square feet, 11,000 of which was devoted to retail sales. After such a disastrous fire, one would think that the owner’s would have fully protected their new building with an automatic fire sprinkler system. Instead of protecting the entire building, the owners opted for a sprinkler system in the basement only. The grand opening was held in January, 1948.
The Walgreens store eventually closed, and the building that was built in 1948 still stands. At some point, the space was divided into two properties. The space at 64 South Main has 11,145 square feet. The space at 66 South Main contains 29,641 square feet.[xliii] Figure 17 shows how the building looked in 1963. Walgreens had closed, and the space was for rent.
Tenants in the building today include the City Market, A A Auto parts, the Radio Center Flats apartments, and Iberia Bank.
[i] NFPA Fireman, Volume 14, Number 5, May 1947
[ii] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, June 26, 1946, page 1
[iii] The Commercial Appeal, January 9, 1938
[iv] The Commercial Appeal, December 5, 1937, page 48
[v] The Commercial Appeal, June 13, 1937, page 16
[vi] The Commercial Appeal, January 9, 1938
[vii] Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Memphis, 1897 Vol 1
[viii] https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-20thcenturyphoto3/227/
[ix] https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-20thcenturyphoto3/240
[x] https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-mpressscimitar5/67/
[xi] The Commercial Appeal, March 7, 1947, page 1
[xii] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
[xiii] The Commercial Appeal, March 7, 1947, page 8
[xiv] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 1
[xv] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 1
[xvi] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 1
[xvii] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 1
[xviii] The Commercial Appeal, March 7, 1947, page 8
[xix] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 1
[xx] The Commercial Appeal, March 7, 1947, page 8
[xxi] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 1
[xxii] The Commercial Appeal, March 8, 1947, page 5
[xxiii] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 11
[xiv] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxv] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxvi] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxvii] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxviii] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxix] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxx] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxxi] Memphis Fire Department photo
[xxxii] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 11
[xxxiii] The Commercial Appeal, March 7, 1947, page 13
[xxxiv] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 7, 1947, page 17
[xxxv] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 6, 1947, page 1
[xxxvi] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 7, 1947, page 10
[xxxvii] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 8, 1947, page 4
[xxxviii] The Commercial Appeal, March 7, 1947, page 1
[xxxix] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 28, 1947, page 1
[xl] Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Memphis, 1907-1952, Vol. 1a
[xli] The Commercial Appeal, June 26, 1947, page 21
[xlii] The Memphis Press-Scimitar, December 6, 1948, page 5
[xliii] https://www.assessormelvinburgess.com/welcome
[xliv] https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-20thcenturyphoto3/122/