Columbus Neighborhoods
Historic Fire at St. Patrick's Church: Rare Photos from 1935
Special | 1m 50sVideo has Closed Captions
Discover rare photos from the 1935 St. Patrick's Church fire, recently unveiled by the Central Ohio.
Explore rare photos from the 1935 St. Patrick's Church fire, captured by the Central Ohio Fire Museum. Witness the Columbus Fire Department's swift response and the dramatic rescue of Chief Welch. These historic images offer a unique glimpse into firefighting history and the community's reaction to the blaze. Don't miss this visual journey into the past!
Columbus Neighborhoods is a local public television program presented by WOSU
Columbus Neighborhoods
Historic Fire at St. Patrick's Church: Rare Photos from 1935
Special | 1m 50sVideo has Closed Captions
Explore rare photos from the 1935 St. Patrick's Church fire, captured by the Central Ohio Fire Museum. Witness the Columbus Fire Department's swift response and the dramatic rescue of Chief Welch. These historic images offer a unique glimpse into firefighting history and the community's reaction to the blaze. Don't miss this visual journey into the past!
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship>>> This series of photos came from the Central Ohio Fire Museum.
We're scanning a series of glass plate negatives that they had in their archives, and all of these photos actually are showing the same fire scene at St. Patrick's Church, which is just on the street at the corner of Grant and Naughton.
In 1935, they suffered a fire after some workmen caught the roof on fire.
The Columbus Fire Department responded very quickly.
They saved most of the building, only really the organ and the roof itself were damaged.
All of the stained glass, the walls, most of the structure were contained, but it took a lot of apparatus, which is well-documented in the photos and is really a great snapshot of sort of what the divisions looked like at the time.
We also had some really great photos showing some of the neighborhood around the area.
As people came to watch the fire, they were taking photos, and the fire photographer actually went to an upper-level building nearby to capture some of the work that was being done.
When we exposed the photo, we kind of got this visual of these gentlemen looking through the window, and when we adjusted the exposure, we were able to see the background there and all of the buildings nearby.
I think our favorite, though, was this photo here, which is actually a film negative, and it shows Chief Welch of the fire department being carried out after being electrocuted.
It turned out that he didn't wear the appropriate boots for the day.
When he stepped in some water, he was shocked.
His son, R .J., who's actually running here alongside the stretcher, went to save him, was shocked as well.
Both made a full recovery.
R.J. actually went on to become a firefighter himself.
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Ohio Snapshots in Time is produced by WOSU Public Media in partnership with the staff of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.
Columbus Neighborhoods is a local public television program presented by WOSU