Fire on East Beach: a history

BY JEFF ROSENBERG

2022 MARKS THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEVASTATING FIRE AND RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CHARNLEY-NORWOOD HOUSE.

Charnley-Norwood House Ocean Springs, Jackson County Miss. pre 1897-from AIC Ryerson Burnham Archives Richard Nickle Collection

Initially built in 1890, the Charney-Norwood House was rebuilt after a disastrous inferno in 1897. While devastating for the Norwoods, the fire led to many improvements to the house’s design.

Fred and Elizabeth Norwood purchased the property from James and Helen Charnley in June 1896. Both families were from Chicago and used the Ocean Springs home as a winter retreat to escape the wicked winters along Lake Michigan.

The winter of 1897 in Chicago was shaping up to be a brutal one. The city was experiencing its third year in a row with total snowfall greater than 45 inches. Elizabeth and her adult daughters, Vina, 42, and Winifred, 27, would have likely been eager to leave the city behind in hopes of the south’s warmer environs. While Fred would attend to business and join them later, the trio made the 24-hour train trip from Chicago to the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the comfort of a Pullman sleeper car. Perhaps they did not know, but South Mississippi was experiencing a similarly bad winter. Issues of the Biloxi Herald described this winter as equally fierce, with a blizzard striking Mississippi during the last week in January. For three days, rain, sleet and eventually snow, blanketed the Coast. As night approached, the cold grew much worse, coating trees, telegraph, telephone and electrical wires with a thick layer of ice. While the weather warmed slightly enough to melt the snow, the extreme cold remained and was remarked on for its unprecedented length and severity as torrents of rain fell the second week of February, weather which the Herald referred to as abominable, terribly wet and unusual.

The Norwoods were no doubt surprised to see the weather in Mississippi not much more pleasant than what they had left behind, finding the Coast amid a cold blast when they arrived. To fight the chill, the Norwoods supplemented the four fireplaces of their house with charcoal

furnaces. The evening of February 17, the family went to bed, leaving the heaters burning to keep them warm through the night. These charcoal heaters were commonly used to heat irons, boil water or warm a small space. They were a regular yet dangerous sight in Victorian households, as they could asphyxiate persons in an enclosed space. Sadly, it was not unusual to read in newspapers from the 1890’s reports of death and destruction when the charcoal furnaces were used improperly or neglected. Unattended they could catch fire, and at approximately 2 a.m. on February 18, 1897, one of the daughters discovered that a heater had done just that. Being a mile from town with no telephone, it was futile to attempt to call out the Ocean Spring fire brigade. The ladies, along with help from their neighbor (and the house’s original architect), Louis H. Sullivan bravely fought the flames, while evacuating clothing and a few pieces of furniture. However, the house was a total loss, burning completely to the ground.

Several Gulf Coast newspapers carried brief mentions of the fire and followed the Norwoods' struggle with their insurance policy to recoup their loss. The Pascagoula News reported on a major fire at the Norwood property in March 1897, suggesting that it was the result of arson: “The Norwoods are wrestling with the insurance adjusters in settlement of their fire loss on their beautiful home. It seems strange that a little good detective work isn’t employed to unearth the miscreant who applied the torch. We understand that the Norwoods will rebuild at once.” In May 1897, the same paper reported on the Norwoods' plans to rebuild, stating that “Mr. F. W. Norwood is to have a $5,000 building erected on the site where the family residence was destroyed by fire.” Physical evidence of the 1897 fire and subsequent reconstruction remain imprinted on the site after more than 100 years. Archaeological investigations following Hurricane Katrina determined that the house was burned completely as ash, melted glass and a few rusty nails were all that was found during excavations under the existing house. Signatures of the builders on the wood shingle exterior, and on the interior walls date the completion of construction to have occurred in the late summer of 1897.

The Norwoods must have been fond of the home that burned. When they rebuilt the new home was done in similar fashion as the previous one, yet with several key changes. Louis Sullivan had lived in his near similar house for seven years at that point and understood how the original design could be improved. While the horizontal orientation, hipped roofs, T-shaped floor plan and large porches of the house that burned were reconstructed, Sullivan’s famed declaration of “form follows function” was taken into consideration during the 1897 redesign of the house. Some of these changes included the use of natural curly pine tongue and groove interior walls instead of the wallpapered walls previously used, the inclusion of window bays in the bedrooms and a theme of three carried throughout the house.

Today the house is protected from fire with state-of-the-art dry pipe sprinklers and a fire alarm system. The chimneys have their flues covered with slate slabs, and the dampers welded shut. A small plaque has been installed in each fireplace to remind visitors that fires are not allowed, as the modern heating system has eliminated the need for them.

We hope you’ll come and visit the house in person. A tour can be scheduled by reaching us at heritage@dmr.ms.gov.

Physical evidence of the 1897

NATURAL