COLUMN: Some fires can never be put out
Oak City Cemetery is on the north edge of Bainbridge, not far from the banks of the Flint River.
Like most old cemeteries, not only has it been the final resting place for many citizens of this town but also a history book. There are stories between the lines of epitaphs carved into headstones and grave markers.
Marvin Griffin, the first man in Georgia to hold the offices of adjutant general, lieutenant governor and governor, is buried at Oak City. So is Miriam Hopkins, a hometown girl who became an Academy Award-nominated actress with, not one, but two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (She auditioned for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind” but the part went to Vivian Leigh.)
The grave of my maternal grandfather is here. His name was Charlie Curtis Smith and he died at age 27 after camping out on a fishing trip. He came down with pneumonia, a death sentence back in those times. My grandmother was pregnant with my mother, who was named after the father she never knew.
Once, on a trip with Mama to visit his grave, she pointed out, with great sorrow, that the graves of seven high school students killed in the famous Winecoff Hotel fire were scattered across the cemetery under the canopy of oak trees draped with Spanish moss.
They were among the 40 teenagers attending the annual Georgia YMCA youth assembly at the state capitol in Atlanta on Dec. 7, 1946. It was exactly five years to the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Thirty of those teens died in the worst hotel disaster in U.S. history, which killed 119 people.
You can imagine the collective heartache of a small South Georgia town where everybody knows everybody. Five promising young women and two popular young men – both Boys Scouts -- either jumped to their deaths in desperation from the ninth floor of the 15-story hotel or died in their sleep of smoke inhalation. Among them was Patsy Griffin, who was Marvin Griffin’s 14-year-old daughter.
The tragedy hit home for my mother and never left. She was born in Bainbridge, where the seven students and their teacher were lost in the fire. And she graduated from high school in Fitzgerald, where four members of a family died.
It was not the first time I had heard of the Winecoff fire, nor would it be the last. In 1993, a former newspaper colleague, Sam Heys, co-wrote a book called “The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America’s Deadliest Hotel Fire.’’
And years later, I interviewed Ed Kiker Williams, of Cordele. At the time, he was a 17-year-old on a shopping trip to Atlanta with his family. They were staying on the 14th floor, one from the top of the 15-story hotel, the tallest in Atlanta.
His mother, 8-year-old sister, aunt and three cousins all died in the blaze. As the fire surrounded him, and with the smoke choking his lungs, he leaned out the window, gasping for air. Clinging to a mullion, he lost consciousness and fell. He miraculously survived when he landed on top of a ladder about 25 feet below. Firefighters had extended it horizontally across an alley to another building to aid in their rescue efforts.
On Monday, while the rest of the country is paying tribute on Pearl Harbor Day, I will be among those who also will pause to remember the Winecoff. Next year will mark the 75th anniversary.
Although more than 100 people died, countless lives have been saved as the result of revised fire codes.
In printed advertisements and on billboards leading into Atlanta, the Winecoff was hailed as “fireproof.’’ But it was “fireproof” in the same sense the Titanic was touted as “unsinkable.’’\u0009
Those misleading claims were fatally flawed. The hotel had been designed and built in 1913 without fire escapes, fire alarms or a sprinkler system because none were required by law.
The sturdy brick structure might withstand flames, but the interior was like giant tinderbox. Ladders from the Atlanta Fire Department could reach no higher than the seventh floor. About 80 percent of the fatalities were guests staying on the eighth floor or above on the back side of the building.
There were 280 registered guests in the hotel, which was full occupancy. More than half were trapped by the inferno after the first alarm sounded at 3:42 a.m. Although the origin of the fire was never determined, arson was suspected following an all-night poker game on the third floor.
Every year, on Dec. 7, I teach my journalism students about the Winecoff fire. Among the lessons – besides reflecting on the tragedy – is to be prepared for breaking news. I share the story of Arnold Hardy, a Georgia Tech student and amateur photographer, who was awakened by the sirens that night. He grabbed his new camera, caught a cab and raced off into the darkness.
Hardy, who a few hours earlier had been soundly sleeping in his bed, wore the unofficial badge of citizen journalist. He did not work for a newspaper or other news organization.
Those were the days of film cameras and flash bulbs. There were no cell phones with built-in cameras and live streams on Twitter.
Photographs taken by Hardy and others captured haunting images of guests trapped on the upper floors, with bed sheets tied together and dangling from open windows.
He used his last flash to take the most famous visual image of the horror -- a woman jumping from the building. That photo, which was picked up and published by The Associated Press, earned him the Pulitzer Prize, the high honor in journalism.
In 2007, the historic Winecoff building opened as a boutique hotel, The Ellis, at the corner of Ellis and Peachtree. Over the years, there have been reunions for survivors and the relatives of those who perished.
Even with the march generations, the grief passes slowly. Cemeteries in towns like Bainbridge, Thomaston, Cordele, Fitzgerald, and Barnesville are placeholders for those who cannot and will not forget.
Some fires can never be put out.
Ed Grisamore teaches journalism at Stratford Academy in Macon. His column appears on Sundays in The Telegraph.