Macon’s ‘turkeyless’ Christmas: Birds, gifts perished in ‘spectacular’ 1920 blaze
A blaze tore through a warehouse on Broadway in downtown Macon the Sunday morning of Dec. 19, 1920, as thousands looked on.
The inferno made news that, were it to happen today, may well have gone viral on the internet.
It was headline gold.
“Christmas Gifts And Turkeys Are Fuel For Flames,” declared one on the front page of the next morning’s Telegraph.
All told, the fire at the American Railways Express Company warehouse at 520 Broadway near Poplar Street caused an estimated $150,000 in damage.
The newspaper write-up began with a holiday flourish:
Santa Claus’ annual visit to Macon was given a setback and many Christmas dinners will be turkeyless this year as a result of the destruction by fire yesterday. ... Hundreds of pounds of Christmas turkey, along with gifts of all kinds intended for delivery to Macon homes and business houses, went up in flames.
It wasn’t clear what sparked the fire — which left three firefighters burned when some 25 tons of stored coal ignited.
The blaze started in a part of the warehouse basement used by the Macon Iron and Paper Company.
“Thousands of persons watched the fire from along the other side of Broadway, a squad of police holding the crowd back from danger,” the newspaper account went on. “The flames ... spread with such rapidity that the whole front of the structure was blazing.”
Ordinarily some $100,000 worth of gifts would have been stored there ahead of the holiday, but that sum was trimmed to a third as much because of “heavy deliveries” made the day before.
There was an unusual note buried in the article.
It turned out that the some of the American Railways Express records were salvaged because they were on the second floor.
“The records saved are said to contain important information pertaining to the prosecution by the company of former employees who are now under indictment charged with larceny of valuable goods said to have been stolen during the past two years,” the article said, adding that 64 of the company’s former employees were under federal indictment.