The "bucket brigade" wasn't effective enough to save a single building in Harlan's most destructive fire June 1, 1913 in which nine buildings were lost. The fire was believed to have started from an upstairs room in the old Bank building on Second Street from an oil lamp and spread to eight other buildings.

Completely destroyed was the bank building, the Will Noe Store on the corner where the Margie Grand Theatre is today. In the rear of the store was another store building owned by Miss Matt Smith which also burned.

Most of the merchandise was removed and the building was dynamited in an effort to stop the raging fire, but in vain. Across the street the blaze swept to Walter Gregory's hardware and to an empty building beside it which was owned by Will Blanton.

The Will Blanton home in the rear of the store and the Nerve Nolan home was destroyed. The flames leaped across the street to the Howard building. Marion howard's hardware and his fathers hotel were the last to burn.

A building to the rear of the hardware known as the "coffin house" was also lost. Caskets for the hardware were stored in the building. All of the buildings were made of plank.

Few persons in Harlan remained at home when the guns sounded the warning alarm of a fire. Men and women alike run with tubs and buckets to aid in the fire fighting. The steady pumping of a well in the "court house square" could be heard continuously for hours.

The buckets clanged and banged as men literally ran with the water. All available blankets were brought to the scene and hung from windows or tacked to the outside walls as water carrieres dashed buckets of water over them in an effort to check the fire.

The intense heat prevented the workers from using the well in the rear of the Sam Howard Hotel. Marble top tables and a few pieces of furniture were thrown from the hotel windows and broke as they fell to the ground.

Fire fighters were warned to move away from the blazing buildings because shells in the hardware stores would begin to explode as the heat reached them. Most of the women and children ran to their homes and heard the explosions as they ran.

Mr. and Mrs. Marion Howard and John Carter were in Middlesboro when the fire broke out that Sunday midnight. Ed Jones, a clerk in the Howard store, called them to relate the news.

They were helpless because a train didn't leave until Sunday morning. They were in Middlesboro to meet the Carter girls(Ruby and Clay) who were attending school in North Carolina.

They arrived the next morning to find smouldering hot ashes all that remained of their home. A few scattered pieces of furniture from the store was piled up on the court house lawn and a group of Boy Scouts stood guard over it.

So it goes down in history that the big Central Street fire was the most damaging one in Harlan.

Sunday October 4, 1953

Volume 52 Number 231

Pages 1 & 3

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