Factory Fire

Category: Labor Markers & Monuments

This monument commemorates the workers killed in the 1888 fire which destroyed the eight-story building near the upper falls which housed the Williams, Hoyt & Company (Shoe Factory), the Steam Gauge and Lantern Works, and a box factory. When the fire broke out there were over a hundred workers on site. Men in the upper stories ran for stairways and windows; some jumped from windows, falling 60 to 100 feet to the pavement below. A total of 34 workers were killed in the disaster, half of them minors. A worker subsequently arrested under suspicion of arson was apparently not convicted.