WOOLWORTH'S, CHARLESTON

Photo: 209 Capitol Street Development

On March 4, 1949, seven firefighters died in a fire and collapse at the F.W. Woolworth & Co. store in downtown Charleston, West Virginia.

A dozen or more were injured.

Firefighters Richard Gilmer and J.P. ``Jigs'' Little were manning a cellar pipe when the first floor fell into the basement.

Gilmer survived.

``I didn't hear or see no more of Jigs at all,'' Gilmer recalled at a memorial service 50 years later.

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FIREMEN DIE IN MILLION DOLLAR FIRE.

Charleston, W. Va. (Associated Press) -- Seven firemen were trapped and burned to death Friday as a million dollar fire raged out of control for eight hours in two dime stores.

At least 15 others were injured, two critically, in what was described as the most disastrous blaze in the city's history.

Listed in critical condition at a hospital were Capt. CHARLES CLENDENIN, 39, overcome by smoke, and CARL WIBLIN, 25, burned about the face, hands and chest.

Attendants said both had been placed in oxygen tents.

Exhausted firemen wept as the bodies of their comrades were brought out of the Woolworth store basement after the fire was brought under control at noon.

It apparently started in the basement and was well developed when a policeman spotted it at 4 a.m.

One squad of firemen worked down a circular stairs into the basement.

Others took hoses into the first story.

The floor suddenly gave way.

Blazing piles of merchandise, cartons of stock and counters crashed into the basement.

They carried some of the fire fighters along and some of those below were buried up to their arm pits.

"It seemed like the whole store was coming down," said ROY C. HILL, 30-year-old rookie fireman who was swept into the basement but managed to get out.

SHAWKEY JONES said he was able to climb over the debris up to the first floor.

"I reached down and got one of the men by the arms," he related. "I don't know who it was, I couldn't see. I pulled on him and tried to get him out of there. He slipped back away from me."

The dead firemen are:

FRANK MILLER.
FREDDIE SUMMERS.
J. P. LITTLE.
FRANK SHARP.
RICHARD McCORMICK.
GEORGE COATES.
EMORY PAULEY.

Most of them were caught when the floor collapsed.

COATES, a Negro, went in after the trapped men and didn't return.

All the city's fire fighting strength was mobilized as the blaze swept through the three-story Woolworth building and jumped to the roof of the adjoining Kresge store.

They are located on Capitol Street, the main business thoroughfare.

The Woolworth building was burned out.

The roof of the Kresge store burned and partly collapsed.

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According to website theclio.com:

The Woolworth Department Store in downtown Charleston, WV was a "whites only" department store that caught fire and burned on May 5th, 1949.

Among the seven firefighters who died battling the fire, were two black firefighters, Richard McCormick and U.S. Army veteran George Coates. Had McCormick and Coates tried to sit down to eat a sandwich or have a cup of coffee at the Woolworth’s lunch counter the day before the fire, they would have been denied.

This store was certainly not alone in their "white-only" policy, as several other downtown lunch counters did not allow blacks until 1958. 

The tragedy served as a catalyst for African-Americans in the Charleston area that led to several protests in the 1950s and would lead to city-wide sit-ins and boycotts in the late 1950s. In that year, sit-ins and boycotts organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) compelled most store owners to change their practice.