On Sunday August 17, 1975, a fire destroyed this entire block. It was a Sunday morning around 11:00 when it started in the freezer of Exotic Florist. There was an electrical short in the wiring of the freezer that held Exotic’s flowers. This building was built sometime in the early 1950’s and the building code did not require fire walls between the offices … since there was no fire wall, all of the units shared a common attic. Once the fire got into the attic, it was just a short time until all of the businesses where consumed in fire. My father happened to be there at the time and was able to grab a few cameras and save them, but everything else in his studio was completely destroyed. The following is a photographic story of the fire, the aftermath and the rebuilding of the block. There are a lot of photos and they really need no explanation, so I won’t bother you with any …
I tried to enter the photographs in some type of sequence starting down at Exotic Florist and then moving north up 12th Avenue through the rest of the businesses. The entire fire from start to finish only took an hour or so. The firemen did an excellent job in getting the fire out and luckily they were able to save the Winn-Dixie grocery store. Now the next photograph is the clean-up several days later …
There was an alley between the grocery store and the building that burned, so I am sure that was the reason that Winn-Dixie did not burn. But it did have smoke and some water damage. The above photo was taken the following week and I am not sure of the date. The Moulton’s owned the property and cleaned up the damage within a week or so. Now, the next images are of the new building that was built within six months of the fire …
The aerial photograph is one that I made years later, but I thought that it added something to the rest of the images. The only businesses that went back in were Dr. Hoyt, Fischler Framing and my father. This new building was completed by February 1976. He had moved across the street to a vacant building on Gonzalez Street and this is where he had started his business in 1948. There are several other photos that I might throw up later, but this is the majority of the images that I have collected / found through the years. The Pensacola News Journal did an article on my father and the fire, but I do not know if I am allowed to publish the photos and the write-up, with copyright laws and such. Speaking of which, there is a local hospital that has been using my photos in their centennial advertisements without my permission or compensation, but that is a whole other story. Thanks for looking and please check back. Also, if anyone remembers the fire and happened to around when the fire started, I would like to hear from you … Frank. I will leave you with one more view across the parking lot looking North.
