On March 5, 1949, seven Charleston (WV) firefighters were killed in a fire at the three-story Woolworth Building. The May 1949 issue of Fire Engineering magazine had a story on the fire and line-of-duty deaths, and now you can download this historic story as a PDF.
The firefighters killed in the tragedy were George Coates; J.P. Little; Richard McCormick; Frank N. Miller; Emory Pauley; Frank Sharp; and Freddie Summers. The city held a memorial this past Tuesday at the location of the fire.
Read the account of the fire from our May 1949 issue HERE (PDF, 1 MB).