Historic fires that changed Davidson
By David Boraks
Devastating fires in 1901 and 1906 destroyed Davidson's downtown and changed the way we build. A 1921 blaze burned Davidson College's main campus building. A fire on Brady's Alley off Main Street in 1941 killed five Black children, highlighting the substandard living conditions for the town's poorest families.
Those were among the stories in Davidson Historical Society's October 24 program on the fires that changed Davidson. About 50 people attended at Davidson Town Hall & Community Center on South Street.
[COMING SOON: A podcast replay of the program. Please check back]
Davidson fire chief Ryan Monteith wrapped up the panel by talking about the evolution of the fire department, including a shift from volunteers to a full-time paid department. Monteith also looked forward, showing drawings and discussing plans for a new Fire Station No. 1 on Griffith Street, which could open in 2029.
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All the major fires we looked at for this program were in the 20th century. Early blazes like the Main Street fires burned quickly, because structures until then were made of wood and there were no fire hydrants downtown. Davidson Historical Society members and volunteers came up with the list and researched the fires. Here's a summary:
Main Street Fires
Cary Anne Melton, DHS secretary, said the Main Street fires happened on a commercial block that looked very different than today. At the turn of the 20th century, Main Street consisted of wood-frame buildings, some spaced out.
"Those two fires absolutely shaped downtown, and they're largely responsible for why downtown looks like it does today," Melton said.
In both fires, water from nearby mills helped extinguish the flames. The town had no fire department or municipal water system, Melton said.
The 1901 fire started in a livery stable south of Brady's Alley, well behind Main Street, she said. "And it gets blown down south. The Charlotte News put it as a headline story: 'Big Fire in Davidson.' $15,000 blaze. That's like $700,000 today," Melton said.
The fire prompted new town ordinances that required brick construction and metal or stone roofs, and banned livery stables from sensitive areas.
The 1906 fire started in a general store just north of Brady's Alley. It burned out when it reached a brick structure a few buildings down, "illustrating how the new requirements limited its spread," Melton said.
A comparison of Sanborn Fire Insurance maps from before and after the two fires shows a shift from scattered frame homes and businesses to a consistent, closely-built brick Main Street, she said.
Campus blaze
DHS vice president Rachel Workman recounted the 1921 Chambers Building fire, which destroyed the main campus building and students’ belongings.
The building had been built in 1858 at a time when the campus sorely needed space. It was designed by architect Alexander J. Davis and included classrooms, laboratories, dormitory rooms, and a library. But, as Workman noted, disaster struck in the middle of the night Nov. 28, 1921: Fire destroyed the building.
"Davidson still had nothing even close to an organized fire department at the time. Mooresville sent help, but their equipment couldn't get through due to construction on the road. By the time the mayor of Charlotte offered help, it was too late, and the building was a loss," Workman said.
Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt.
"A new Chambers was ultimately constructed and finished in 1929," she said. "The truth was that the old Chambers was outdated, and talks had already been started on how to update it to modern standards. The fire may have been a blessing in disguise."
Brady's Alley tragedy
DHS board member Wendy Readling described two fires on Brady’s Alley, which ran between Main Street and what's now Jackson Street. (Behind and beside the current Famous Toastery restaurant.) The first, in 1941, was the most deadly fire in Davidson history, killing five children.
At the time, Brady's Alley was a row of shacks - unsafe and overcrowded - that housed African American families. Readling said 63 people lived in 11 rental homes on the alley.
"It was a neighborhood of Black families who worked as college janitors and laundry workers, shoe repairmen, delivery boys for the drugstores, and asbestos mill workers," she said.
"This neighborhood was in a very sad state. It had no sewage system other than outdoor toilets, communal spigots which froze in the winter, and no electricity. The houses were crudely built with leaky wood siding, which was reinforced with newspapers stuffed in the cracks to keep out the wind. Heat was provided by pot-bellied stoves, and this combination made them very vulnerable to fires," Readling said.
Naomi Caldwell lived in one of these buildings, with her five children. She worked 45 hours a week as a private maid. She was a single mother at the time, because her husband, Willie, was imprisoned in Tarboro, Readling said.
"On that Friday morning, probably a cold morning, she left the house to mail a package at the post office next door. While she was away, the house caught fire, killing all five of her children," she said.
The fire warranted only one paragraph on page three of The Davidsonian, the Davidson College student newspaper and the town's only paper at the time.
"I'm going to name those children today, in their memory: Athena Etherene, age six; Jenny May, age five; William, age four; Navonda, age three; and Helen, six months. Unfortunately, it would not be the last fire in this neighborhood," Readling said.
In 1950, another fire struck Brady's Alley. By then, the neighborhood had 87 people living in 10 buildings. It came on a Sunday morning, as The Rev. Carlton Pritchett preached at nearby Davidson College Presbyterian Church.
"Sirens went off. Services were hastily concluded, and the congregation was urged to provide help if needed," Readling said.
One house had burned. It belonged to Mildred and Lewis Lowry. Lewis worked at the cottonseed oil mill in town, and Mildred at a Davidson College boarding house. They escaped the blaze, but lost everything.
Pritchard's next Sunday sermon focused on the poor living conditions. He later organized a town hall meeting that drew 350 people - one-sixth of the town's population at the time. That led to formation of the Citizens Housing Committee, which revised the town's housing ordinance to require, among other things, indoor toilets and electricity, minimum room sizes, window screens, and safe chimneys. The town agreed to provide sewer service to the West Side and other un-served areas. Money was raised to buy lots, build homes and help finance mortgages so people in the neighborhood could buy their own homes.
"This push led to the development of the Lakeside neighborhood adjacent to Roosevelt Wilson Park, and really laid the early philosophical foundation for Davidson's current progressive stance on inclusionary zoning and affordable housing," Readling said.
1946 Davidson School fire
DHS board member Margaret Kuras covered the fire that burned the Davidson School on South Street in 1946. The wood-frame structure was erected in 1893, with a front section added in 1923.
The fire began early on Tuesday morning, July 16, probably from a lightning strike, according to Kuras.
It was spotted around 6:30am, she said. "Immediately calls went out to the Davidson Fire Department as well as the Mooresville Fire Department. Now, these fire departments were mostly volunteer, and in addition to the fire departments working on the fire, many local residents helped as well," she said.
"Despite all the efforts of the fire departments and the local residents, the fire pretty much destroyed the school. It was still blazing at 11 a.m. and finally burned out eventually in the afternoon," Readling said.
Temporary classrooms were set up in the school gymnasium building, which had been built behind the school in 1937. Other classes were held at Phi and Eu halls on the Davidson College campus.
After lengthy planning and delays, the local school district agreed to fund a new school. Made of brick this time, it opened in 1948. It was a school for decades and was renovated to become Davidson Town Hall in 2023.
Davidson Cotton Seed Oil plant
At the mid-point of the 20th century, Davidson not only had the college, but also factories. On South Main Street, where South Main Square sits today, sat the Southern Cotton Oil Co. DHS volunteer Jane Holland remembers her father taking her to that fire, and told the story.
In 1952, Davidson was still a small community of no more than 2,000 people. "All around Davidson were small farms, where the primary cash crop was cotton," Holland said. It was October, and the crop had just been picked. Cotton was sent by flatbed trucks to cotton gins, including one in Cornelius.
"The cotton gin would take the seeds out and send the cotton to the local mills, including the Davidson and Linden mills, the mills in Cornelius and Concord and Kannapolis," Holland said.
The gin separated out the seeds, which were then taken to the Southern Cotton Oil plant for processing into cooking oil as well as fertilizer.
The plant had several warehouses, and it was one of those that caught fire, Holland said.
"We were eating supper on the back porch, and a whistle went off in the distance. And my father, who had spent summers working for Mr. (Wilburn) Wib Thompson down at the cotton mill, said, 'That's a fire whistle,' and immediately went to his truck and took me with him," Holland recalled.
"We got there probably before the fire truck and parked … and the fire was two, three stories tall. It's the biggest fire I've ever seen in my entire life. James Puckett wrote in his book that they were coming home from Cornelius and could see the fire as they came down Highway 115. It was just way up in the sky," she said.
"My father parked me under the bay window in what's now Whit's (Custard shop, on South Main Street). And he said, 'Don't move.' And he went and was carrying hoses for the fire department.
"Of course, it was (cottonseed) oil, so the water may not have helped a lot. It ultimately ended up being four different fire departments that were at that fire, and it was written up in the paper," she said. The property was valued at $250,000 ($3.2 million in 2026 dollars) … and it went up in flames," Holland said.
That makes it one of the costliest fires in Davidson history, if not the costliest.
The property has since been redeveloped as offices, housing and shops.
Movie Theater fire of 1955
Holland also remembers another major fire from her youth: the Valentine's Day 1955 fire at Stough Brothers movie theater on Main Street. The building stood where the CVS pharmacy is now.
The building had been an automotive garage, but the Stough brothers decided a movie theater might be a better business. "And the garage had floors where they'd been fixing cars for as long as cars had been invented, and lots of oil. According to James Puckett, there was a big furnace in back, like in 'Home Alone,' with the fire inside, and you shoveled more coal in every day. But they put a nice front on the front," she said.
There was a marquee over the front door, a projection booth, a popcorn machine and a candy counter. "They showed movies for 10 cents a piece, (with) serials on Saturday. And it was quite a lucrative business in town," she said.
"So on Valentine's Day weekend in 1955, Louis Armstrong was at the college. But those students who weren't at Louis Armstrong were at the movie theater. And sometime in the middle of the movie, a fire broke out. And according to The Davidsonian, the Davidson students weren't in any hurry to leave. This was pretty exciting, to be inside in the fire, and they didn't feel like they were in any danger."
Some may not have realized it was a real fire because they thought it was just special effects, Holland said. "The movie was about Sitting Bull and Custer smoking a peace pipe, and the smoke coming up," she said.
After the fire, the front porch remained, along with the candy counter the projection booth. Holland said the burned building remained for some time, without a fence or barricades. "We used to sit on the steps as we passed because it was a nice stop on the way home from school," she said.
From volunteer to full-time, firefighting evolves
Our final speaker was Davidson fire chief Ryan Monteith, who spoke about how firefighting has evolved in town over the past century. He's been a Davidson firefighter since 2007 and chief since 2021. He also worked concurrently as a Charlotte Fire Department firefighter, before retiring last April.
"A lot has changed since the late 1800s in the town of Davidson," Monteith said. "The first organized fire protection for the town of Davidson actually was started at the college. So when there was a fire reported in town, it was the students and then community members that were involved in those suppression activities."
In 1933, the town started its first volunteer fire department. Monteith noted that then and now, Davidson was unique in that fire protection has always been a town government department. That's different from many of our neighboring towns, he said.
Volunteers - including both townspeople and college students and staff - were the backbone of the department for decades. But by the early 2000s, patterns of life had changed. As Davidson became more of a bedroom community for Charlotte, recruiting volunteers got harder.
"We had a lot of individuals that you know would commute to Charlotte to work, and by the time they came home, you know volunteering at the local fire department was just not on their to-do list," Monteith said.
At the urging of then-fire chief Bo Fitzgerald in 2007, the town decided to start hiring paid part-timers, primarily from other full-time departments such as Charlotte.
"Twelve part-time firefighters were hired at the time," Monteith explained. "There were two of us that worked each shift, and it was Monday through Friday, eight to six. … Our primary role was to get the fire trucks out the door, and then hopefully the rest of the volunteers would show up, or Cornelius Fire Department, Mount Mourne Fire Department, Mooresville, whoever it may be that were coming in to assist us with that. That model stayed pretty intact until probably about 2010, when we started providing 24-hour coverage for the town."
By then, firefighters weren't just responding to fire calls, but they had become the primary first responders to medical emergency calls, Monteith said. "We're just not a fire department anymore. We like to call it an all-hazards department," he said.
All those changes meant shifting to a full-time paid staff.
At the same time, Davidson continued to grow, with new subdivisions miles from the fire station downtown. To help keep local fire insurance ratings (and insurance rates) down, the town in 2018 opened its second fire station on Davidson-Concord Road near Beaver Dam. That has helped cut response times to the east side of town.
Shifting to full time and 24-hour coverage has required other changes, including adding sleeping quarters. Both stations now have beds and kitchens.
More growth lies ahead. Monteith said the town is now planning to move the downtown Fire Station No. 1 into a new building at Griffith and Watson streets. He showed plans for a two-story building with 13 sleeping rooms, separate gear and apparatus areas, and a community meeting room. The town hopes to finalize financing in 2027, break ground in spring 2028 and open the new station in 2029.
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