Creighton University

Restoration began at once. But before the roof could be closed several heavy rains drenched the building. The wires were now everywhere throughout the house enclosed in iron conduits, and it was a debated question for sometime as to whether our insurance would pay merely for the former installation or the new one. The narrow stair case in the tower was removed, and the double front stair case continued from the third floor into the attic of the main building. The 14foot ceiling of its four class rooms was restored, but directly over it a substantial floor was laid and hung from the main trusses of the roof, so that thereby a large and formerly useless space could be devoted to storage.
Skylights, which seemed to have been undesirable before, were now put in, so that one can find his way easily in all the attics by day, and by means of electric lights at night. A fire door, plainly marked, was put in the ceiling of the corridor of the north wing. A touch with a pole or a ladder will release the latch of the steel plate, after which the door in the attic floor above it can be raised by the same ladder or by a man climbing up on it. Automatic fire doors which a fire will close, now connect the attics, and the brick walls between the sections are run up above the roof.

The elevator was the last to be repaired, or rather renewed, since everything is new except the motor. The doors are now of iron, and although the door frames are still of wood they are lined with iron bars. All the wires, that is, 500 volts direct for the elevator, 110 and 220 volts alternating for lights, and 220 volts three-phase for motors, now come from a pole on California street, from which they descend in appropriate conduits underground to the rear of the main basement. The church and auditorium current is also controlled here.
The ceilings have everywhere been plated with steel except in the southwest wing. The physical instruments were all replaced in the cases, which were now merely painted and not lined again with burlap or canvas, by August 11. As the students were not here to help me, I had to do it all by myself. I could not call upon any workmen for aid, for fear they would do more harm than good. When classes reopened in September all traces of the fire bad been wiped out.

While the College did not receive all the insurance that it considered itself entitled to, the physical department was allowed its full claim. The instruments upon the whole were not injured, even the triple lantern, the binocular microscope, the galvanometers and the like, showed no traces of the water or the moisture. Nor did the enormous summer heat to which they were subjected in their temporary quarters in the attic, and which on one occasion at least rose to 114 degrees, seem to have done them any harm. Cardboard models and diagrams, and especially a large number of photographic negatives were, however, a total loss. In addition much glass was broken, mostly through the carelessness of the workmen. Then there was the labor of removing, cleaning and restoring the instruments and the minerals, and of making a detailed inventory of the whole outfit.

The table in the lecture room suffered no injury whatever. Thanks to the groove cut below its overhanging top, not a drop of water had entered the drawers. And as to the workshop, there was of course some damage done by the rust. But I did not need to worry about the missing tools. I soon bought more and better ones.

There were other fires at times in the College,  but they did not amount to much, although one which occurred in the basement might have done more harm than the great one of 1911.

The first fire recorded happened on January 6, 1887 in the room on the south side of the second floor of the main building, which is now the corridor east of the chemical lecture room The college historian writes: "Mr. Meloy's books on fire-cause not known- mattress and waste basket burnt to cinders- papers and books in great disorder always in that room- gas often left at full blast for hours when occupant was absent-Insurance agent called to survey the ruins- (some valuable books, valise and trunk.)"

The second fire occurred on Thursday, February 23, 1905. Father M. Ryan in room 125 was awakened at about 4:40 A. M. by the noise of falling plaster and by the heat and smoke of a fire directly under his room in the basement. He awoke Father Dowling who at once turned in a telephone alarm, and then ran in all the rooms in succession to awaken the faculty. Nobody knew where the fire was, because the smoke in the house was stifling. The firemen found and fought it at once from the outside. They had it under control in a few minutes.

The room in which the fire happened was used at the time for storage. The origin of the fire remained a mystery. One queer fact was that a wooden box containing a gross of matches was taken out unhurt. A short newspaper account of the fire contained at least eight errors. The loss was nor great, but as the place was in the basement of the living quarters, the fire might have proved to be very dangerous.

Scared probably by this fire, Father Dowling once saw smoke coming down into the open court between the main building, the southeast and southwest wings and the library, and without more ado immediately turned in an alarm. But it was only the smoke from the kitchen chimney.

At another time some ruffians had set fire paper under the wooden grandstand, which then began to burn.

Once a wooden sidewalk on 25th avenue caught fire, and Father Coppens could not tire of narrating that a hook and ladder company came to put it out.

During the building of the stadium a small house in which the carpenters kept their tools burned one night with great loss to the tools. On Easter Sunday, April 12, 1925, just as the faculty was coming from dinner at about 7 P. M. defective wiring in the tunnel had set fire to a piece of wood which had not been removed after the concrete had set.

There were other minor fires in the Dormitory and in the Medical College, where one, however, on October 10, 1906 caused a damage of two thousand dollars.

Once the new law building was struck by lightning which bored a hole through a foot of concrete on the roof on its way to the elevator at the west end. The old college building, and especially the high tower, although much more exposed, have never been struck by lightning. And this ought to finish the chapter on fires.