On the evening of Saturday, Nov. 9, 1872, a fire broke out in the basement of a granite dry goods building at the corner of Summer and Kingston streets in downtown Boston. By the time it was stopped the next day at Washington and Milk streets, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 had destroyed 776 buildings across roughly 65 acres of the city’s commercial heart. With the 154th anniversary less than two weeks away, here is what happened, why it spread so far, and where you can still trace it on today’s streets.
How the Great Boston Fire of 1872 started
The Boston Fire Department’s own annual report for 1872 records that an alarm sounded from Box 52 at 7:24 p.m. It was followed in quick succession by four more alarms, which called the department’s entire working force to the scene. The report places the origin in the basement of a granite building owned by S. Klous and occupied by Tebbetts, Baldwin & Davis, a dry goods house, and A. K. Young, a hoop-skirt manufacturer.
The Boston Fire Historical Society says Engine Co. 7, based on East Street near today’s South Station, was the first engine to arrive and found the building almost fully involved. Hose Company 2 of Hudson Street is credited with getting the first water on the fire. More alarms followed at 7:29, 7:34, 7:45 and 8 p.m., and calls for outside help went out by telegraph. Help was slowed because many telegraph offices had already closed for the night, but steam engines eventually came by rail from many surrounding cities, some from as far as New Haven, Connecticut.
What actually ignited the fire has never been settled. A commission appointed by Mayor William Gaston on Nov. 26, 1872, concluded that “no answer can be given” to how it began, according to the Massachusetts Historical Society, which holds the commission’s report.
Why it spread: water, roofs and a sick city of horses
The Boston Public Library’s research guide lists several factors behind the fire’s severity: poorly enforced building codes, public confusion about where fire alarm boxes were and how to reach them, old water pipes with low pressure, gas lines that fed the flames and caused explosions, and the use of gunpowder to blow up buildings in an attempt to create firebreaks.
Many of the downtown buildings were brick or granite, which led observers to think of them as nearly fireproof. The Boston Fire Historical Society notes, however, that their window frames and fixtures were wood, which let the fire jump from one structure to the next. It also describes heat so intense that the fire generated its own energy, in effect a firestorm.
The city’s horses were another complication. The department’s annual report says an equine influenza, called the epizootic, reached its horses on Oct. 28 and that by Nov. 4 “the entire force was prostrated.” In response, the Board of Engineers voted to double the department’s manpower so crews could haul equipment by hand, and to press any healthy horses in the city into service if needed. A 1922 Boston Chamber of Commerce history of the fire later argued that the shortage of horses had little direct bearing on the outcome, even though it became one of the best-remembered parts of the story.
The cost in lives and property
The investigating commission valued the destroyed buildings at $13.5 million and the merchandise and other personal property at more than $60 million. The Boston Public Library estimates total damage at roughly $75 million, which it says is more than $1 billion in today’s money, and calls the fire one of the costliest urban fires in U.S. history.
The death toll is less certain. The Boston Fire Historical Society lists nine firefighters killed during the fire and two who later died of their injuries, from the Boston, Charlestown, Cambridge, West Roxbury, Malden and Worcester departments, along with “perhaps fifteen” civilians. The library’s guide gives a range of 13 to 20 deaths and notes that estimates vary. Several hundred people were arrested for looting in the days that followed, according to the library.
How Boston rebuilt and what changed
Fire Chief John Damrell took much of the public blame, even though he had pushed for better fire safety infrastructure before the fire, and by 1874 he had been replaced by a Board of Fire Commissioners, the historical society says. He went on to lead Boston’s Building Department for many years and, according to the library, became a crusader for stronger building codes.
The library’s guide says building codes were tightened, city loan and insurance laws were changed and several streets were widened. Much of the rubble was dumped into the harbor as fill for Atlantic Avenue. Because the burned area was mostly commercial, the business district was rebuilt fairly quickly, although several insurance companies went bankrupt. A Massachusetts Historical Society post drawing on the journals of merchant William Gray Brooks notes that two more fires broke out in the following weeks, near the Custom House on Nov. 19 and in Cornhill the next day, and that Brooks wondered in his journal whether Boston was a “doomed city.”
Where to see the Great Boston Fire’s footprint today
The fire’s starting point, at Summer and Kingston streets, sits in today’s Downtown Crossing shopping district, a short walk from South Station. The place where it stopped is just as easy to find. The Boston Public Library credits the effort to save the Old South Meeting House, at the corner of Washington and Milk streets, with finally halting the fire. The meeting house still stands on the Freedom Trail, and it is a natural stop for anyone who took one of the walking tours in our Halloween week guide to Boston history tours.
Walking between those two corners takes only a few minutes. For another slice of downtown history nearby, see our story on Parker’s Restaurant at the Omni Parker House. And if you are planning more history outings this fall, our roundup of Veterans Day 2026 events in Boston lists dated events around the city.
Researchers can go further with the City of Boston Archives, which holds records from the period and photographs of the aftermath, including the image at the top of this story, and with the Library of Congress, which has a guide to newspaper coverage of the fire in its Chronicling America collection.
Sources
- Great Fire of 1872 research guide, Boston Public Library
- Great Boston Fire of 1872, Boston Fire Historical Society
- Boston Fire Department annual report, 1872 (PDF), via Boston Fire Historical Society
- “A fearful time for old Boston”: The Great Fire of 1872, Massachusetts Historical Society
- The Boston Fire, November 9, 1872, Boston Chamber of Commerce, 1922 (PDF)
Additional sources
- Great Boston Fire of 1872: Topics in Chronicling America, Library of Congress
- Great Fire, Boston, Mass., 1872 subject records, City of Boston Archives
- Aftermath of Fire of 1872 photograph, City of Boston Archives
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