Providence Opera House Fire !!! (1900)

In the Providence Opera House Providence RI September 23 1900 one sprinkler extinguished a blaze under the stage and rang an alarm at the same time with the result that the loss was so small no insurance claim was made.
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"Union Railway Company of Providence RI suffered a fire on Sunday evening March 2 1902"



The Union Railway Company of Providence RI suffered a fire on Sunday evening March 2 1902 A basement and one story brick barn 100x126 feet was newly equipped with Grinnell dry system sprinklers supplied by city water at 30 pounds pressure Fire started in an ordinary 20 foot box car located in the corner of the barn and when discovered _ the whole inside of the car was afire Twenty five sprinklers opened and confined the fire to the car in which it started the blaze being finally extinguished with chemicals by the public department There were two other cars on the same track and one on the next track to the burning car which were soon pulled out of danger so that it cannot be positively stated whether they would have been saved by sprinklers or not The opinion of the report however seems to be that they would have been and the action of sprinklers in this case was a distinct success

Recently Seen 1900 Article on Rhode Island Libraries

Lovecraft loved libraries. You should be able to open up these by clicking them and expanding them to a new window. Lovecraft would have visited many of theselibraries in his lifetime, and one can feel the books and maybe even imagine Lovecraft perusing them, walking through their forboding foyers, alcoves, and stacks - his imagination soaring, his antiquarianism burning.




1900 THE LIBRARIES OF RHODE ISLAND Providence Pawtucket
Antique article entitled, THE LIBRARIES OF RHODE ISLAND. By Henry Robinson Palmer.
This interesting magazine article was removed from the June, 1900 issue of "New England Magazine." The article is 23 pages in length and has 28 illustrations.
The dimensions of each page of this magazine article are 6 1/2" X 9 1/2".

Antiquarian Image of Turk's Head Area

Circa 1906: Original Turk's Head Area

This is the place familair to street car riding young Lovecraft. He would have been about 16 when this post card was postmarked, and the image dated a year or more earlier. It would have been indelible in his memory despite the shining new tower that took its place.

Of course, we who look at the mouldering skyscraper think that it's quaint and antiquarian as we sit here in 2009 nearly 90 years later. Thus the vagaries of perspective and history in the mind.

Happy Thanksgiving!

10 year old Lovecraft was getting used to living in a new century. He, his Mom, and Grandfather may have seen this issue at the newsstand in Providence. Life, November 29, 1900, Thanksgiving Issue.

(Provenance of this copy according to the seller: This issue is unread and uncirculated. Purchased from the accountants for the old Life magazine years ago. Well illustrated. Inside: Gen. Weyler and Cuba, Puritans and Thanksgiving, Turkeys Things we are thankful for, Charles Dana Gibson, Turkey and the little African American boy, McKinley. Lots of other items and some advertising.)

Lovecraft's World

This image is noted as c.1900 Heydendahl Studio Providence RI (Cabinet Photo ). It's said to be an original photograph of a little girl, probably 2-3 years old, holding an unopened parasol, standing on a Victorian wicker chair.

Lovecraft would have been 9 years old about this time. It gives us perspective that he lived in a very different world than we do.