The Great Fire of 1927 in West Blocton, Alabama

Here are a few of the very few links to information on the Great Fire of 1927 in West Blocton, Alabama and the history of two of its churches:

Here are three books detailing the history of West Blocton:


http://www.mindspring.com/~jallison/west_blocton.htm

http://www.rootsweb.com/~albibb/towns/1927blocktonfire.htm

http://www.rootsweb.com/~albibb/towns/1927blocktonfire2.htm

At the time of the Great Fire of 1927 in West Blocton, Alabama, my father, Jeremiah Dotson Clements, was a young fellow who had just turned 14 years old on June 4th, 1927, about a month before the fire on July 12th, 1927.

J.D., as he was known in those days, lived with his mother and five brothers and sisters on Main Street, where his mother, Dorothy Arrie Stewart Clements, had a grocery store. The family had moved from their farm in the country about five years earlier, and were seeking a better, easier and more prosperous life in West Blocton. Unfortunately, their store, home and livelihood were destroyed by the fire.

Jerry was a first-hand observer and participant in the fire and the well-intentioned, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to contain and extinguish it. At 93 years of age, Jerry's memory of that day is clear as a bell, and he remembers so many interesting details of that day and the days following the aftermath of the fire. Then as now, he is a most keen observer of events and people around him.
Jerry recalls that the day before the fire, he was feeling something akin to an adolescent restlessness with the somewhat boring life he was living in West Blocton. An extraordinary coincidence occurred, and the repercussions of it have stayed with him to this day. He learned the hard way the lesson of the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for. It might come true."

He wished that the entire town would just burn down. And the next day it did. The entire town - almost completely burned down by a conflagration fueled by a strong west wind.

The day the fire started, Jerry was walking down the sidewalk outside the Douthit Hotel where he worked. He was on an errand to the grocery store to get the day's groceries for the hotel, when he heard the loud clanging of the town's fire alarm. He looked around and saw the flames of the fire shooting out of the dry cleaner's shop. These were not just ordinary flames like we see in our fireplaces or campfires, but a huge solid flame shooting out sideways from the building into the street.

At this point, he headed to his family's store, and talked to Mama about what was going on and what to do, and she urged him to go help Mrs. Manring get as much as possible out of the hotel. Afterwards, he went back to help Mama move whatever they could out of their store and put it in the vacant field behind the street.

He recalls that he and everyone in his family were all in such a state of shock, having lost everything, and he cannot remember a lot in between the time when they moved things out of their store and when they went to the preacher's house that night to stay for a few days.

He does remember looking at the remains fo the Douthit Hotel, and seeing stacks and stacks of melted glass liquor bottles in the basement. Mrs. O'Reilly served her homemade brandy in the evenings to her favorite customers. She had a brother in West End who grew peaches and she made peach brandy from these peaches.

He walked around the town for a while, looking at the devastation, and even though the fire was no longer a threat, there were many hot coals and embers, plus smoke, in many of the burned buildings.

I am working with him to put into print all his memories of the fire, its aftermath, life after the fire, and everday life in West Blocton. If anyone reading this blog has additional information related to any of this blog, please feel free to add your comments by clicking the Comment Button at the end of each post. We are endeavoring to reconstruct the events surrounding the Great Fire of 1927, to add to the historical record, since so few of the citizens involved in the fire are still living.