This 1995 photograph shows the burned out Thonet Industries complex two years after the fire, one of the largest in the past two decades in York County. Background: Colonial York, Pa.? No, try Victorian York, Pa. and York County ... 'A smorgasbord of architectural styles' and Fire-damaged Women's Club of York restored.
The question is going around. Was the Chestnut Street rowhouse fire this week the largest ever in York and York County?
It was a big one, displacing 61 people from 26 families who had lived in the 16 damaged rowhouses. The short answer is that a fire in 1856 took out an entire York city block including 17 buildings of mixed uses.
Undoubtedly, the largest fire in York County was the burning of the covered bridge across the Susquehanna River during the Civil War.
U.S. militia set the bridge on fire in 1863 to prevent the Confederates from crossing the river and taking Harrisburg from the east. Some might split hairs and note the bridge was part of Lancaster County, as is the river. But the blaze took out numerous buildings in Wrightsville, too.
But if we're talking about peacetime fires, there's a long lineup to consider.
Here is a sampling compiled from my "Never to be Forgotten," and York Daily Record/Sunday News files:
