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The Court House Burned to the Ground


All of the following article was transcribed and donated by Fran Warren

Below is the newspaper account of the burning of the court house of Crawford County in March of 1877:
Van Buren Press
Crawford County, Arkansas
March 27, 1877
TERRIBLE CALAMITY
The Court House Burned to the Ground.
All the Records of the County Burned to Ashes- Nothing of Value Saved, Loss to the County Irreparable.-
Never before, in the history of our county, has there been a calamity, burdened with more general interest to all our people than the conflagration of Friday night last. "Twas midnight's holy hour, and tired man, had from the drowsy God inhaled the breath of sleep", when the terrible alarm that always affrights the suddenly awakened sleeper, startled our people to the consciousness that the dread disregarder of person, the fire king, was at its work of demolition in our midst.
It was about 1 o'clock Friday night when flames were discovered in the south east corner of the upper room in the court-house building. Before the alarm had gathered together many of our citizens the flames had grown to such a body that the upper room could not be reached by the stairway without much danger to the persons making the attempt. And yet upon that floor in the southwest corner, directly opposite the locality where the fire was supposed to have originated, was the room where were kept all the records of the county, and there seemed no probability that any of them could be saved. A ladder was brought and the window of the room reached and broken in by some of our young men, but to no profit, for on the admission of air, the flames which as yet had not penetrated it, burst forth with demonical fury, driving back by their intense heat, these heroic young men and baffling all their efforts to save the valuable books and papers from the oblivion of the flames. But it was all to no purpose. The "wild, wild winds" fanned to dreadful madness the fierce jets of fire, that seemed to kiss the very darkness of the cloud begirted heavens and all the air was filled with burning leaves, the eternal farewells of those silent but darling reminiscences of our county's past; and today, among the smoldering ruins, is to be found all that is left of the records of our county.
Everything in the Sheriff's office was saved, the tax books being carried every night to Captain WINFREY's house. The room was on the northwest corner of the building and the last part of the office to succumb to the flames.
The loss to the county in the complete destruction of its records is irreparable, while the consuming of the building is the severing of associations which with our older citizens, have served to link the present with the dim and shadowy past.
The walls of the building are standing and those who know say they are safe. The origin of the fire is not positively known, though it is supposed by some to be the work of an incendiary and by others an act of carelessness. There had been no fire in the part of the building where the flames were first discovered.
The wind bore the burning papers in every direction and showers of sparks fell on all sides. Mr. TURNER's old house caught from the falling embers, but was speedily extinguished. It had rained the most of the day Friday and was also, slightly at the time of the unfortunate disaster, and to this propitious circumstance we are indebted for a curbing of the terrible message of woe.


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