Episode 1 of 1
Great St. Louis Fire
- When
- 17 May 1849
- Where
- Business District
A devastating fire destroyed nearly all of St. Louis's business district on May 17, 1849, originating from a steamboat on the Mississippi River.
The fire began when the moored paddle-wheeled steamboat White Cloud caught fire at the foot of Cherry Street. It spread rapidly through wooden buildings, causing significant destruction. The event occurred amidst a population boom and recent cholera deaths, marking a catastrophic moment in the city's history.
Sources
- St. Louis Fire of 1849 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-16
- St. Louis Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.