Fire broke out in Jefferson Smith’s store at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 19, 1893. Fortunately for everyone, the night watchman of the Blue Ridge Inn, diagonally across North Main Street, saw the flames. He woke the hotel’s manager and several guests who broke down the business’ door and doused the fire.
“The fire had burned about half way through the floor,” reported the editor of the Yadkin Valley News that week, “and in a few minutes would have been in the cellar, wherein was a quantity of combustible matter.”
A hot cigar stogie discarded in a wooden spittoon before the store closed on Saturday seems to have been the culprit. Intended to absorb tobacco juice, the spittoon was filled with sawdust.
There was no hesitation on anyone’s part when it came to responding to the fire. There was no fire department to call, people simply stepped in to do what could be done in such situations. If one building caught on fire there was every possibility others would burn as well. It was in everyone’s interests to work together.
If the fire hadn’t been seen, said the paper, “the whole block wherein Mr. Smith’s store is situated would today be a mass of ruins. Without water nothing could have been done but stand by and see the flames destroy a hundred thousand dollars worth of property. In case of fire we are as helpless as babes. We have nothing with which to fight a fire, which once begun, can burn unmolested until all the material within reach has been consumed.”
This was not the first time the paper or downtown business owners had called for a public water source and it wouldn’t be the last. Fire was a constant danger when wood was a primary construction material and illumination, heating, and cooking all still relied heavily on fire.
Business owners across Surry County were often the most involved civic leaders as well. The list of Mount Airy’s mayors reads like a who’s who of the local business community; Graves, Gilmer, Carter, Pace, Sparger, Sydnor, all men deeply involved in retail, manufacturing, and the tobacco industry.
John D. Thompson, born in Patrick County, Virginia, was a salesman for Railroad Mills Snuff by the age of 25 and had settled here. He was part of the Mount Airy Brass Band started in 1893, a band filled with the young men who would be business and civic leaders through the mid-1950s. He was part of the local Odd Fellows organization and served on the finance committee of the town council, a position that required a great deal of trust. Today we’d call this networking, then it was just what you did.
The networking paid off when, in 1904 he landed a position with the E.C. Foy Furniture Company. Three years later, his sales experience combined with the knowledge he gained at Foy’s made him the ideal candidate to join the W.E. Merritt Company which was growing meteorically.
Thompson’s business model is one many local merchants follow today when they can; buy local.
“Mr. Thompson makes a specialty of Mount Airy manufactured furniture, adhering to the principle of patronizing home industries first and always.” Mount Airy Times, 1918
In 1937 he was elected mayor of Mount Airy, an office he held eight years.
Community service is a common thread among the business owners of the region. Aside from working toward public water and fire protection, they took it upon themselves to build with fire-safe materials, moving away from wood when possible and cladding it in granite, iron, and pressed tin ceiling panels when it wasn’t. Anything to keep flame from catching or to slow it down, at least.
Before the city decided to provide sidewalks or a paved street which came in the 1920s, wooden plank sidewalks were installed by and maintained by individual property owners. The merchants on the Prather Block (east side of the 300 block of North Main Street) installed a brick sidewalk in front of their buildings in 1893.
Though the “city authorities propose to do all in their power to improve the streets and sidewalks” in 1899, there simply wasn’t support for the taxes necessary to do the work. “It is impossible to improve the streets to any advantage so long as mud is knee deep.” Mount Airy News, Feb. 16, 1899
Surry seems always to have benefited from public-private cooperation. I think it’s going to take a good deal of that as we move into whatever the uncertain future holds for us all.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com