"Beauty for Ashes" - the 1921 Fire

"Beauty for Ashes" - the 1921 Fire

Undoubtedly, the most dramatic event in the 150 year history of First United Methodist Church was the devastating fire in 1921. This is the account of the fire from the August 9, 1921edition of the Topeka Daily Capital:

"One of the most disastrous fires in the history of Topeka destroyed the First Methodist church, valued at $150,000 to $200,000, yesterday morning. The fire was discovered shortly before 7 A.M. and within two hours only the scorched masonry of the stone walls remained. The entire interior of the church was gutted. The Sunday School Building, a new addition to the church on the west, was partially saved, but it is going to take a lot of money to repair it. The church was insured for only $68,000.

"The cause of the fire was given as spontaneous combustion of forty tons of coal, next winter’s supply, that had been stored in the church’s basement. The coal was known to have been on fire several days previously, but no report had been given to the fire department. Members said the previous fire had been put out with no serious loss and that the fire yesterday was a new blaze.

"The magnificent pipe organ, said to be the finest in this part of the state and just repaired at a cost of $7,500, was charred to a cinder and fell thru the floor to a crumbling heap of ashes in the basement.

"The first tongue of flame which licked hungrily up the cornice of the steeple caught almost every eye. Only a second later the fire broke thru all over the steeple at once. It created a fierce torch which flamed high into the air . . . The torch seemed to rise out of a rainbow made by the sun shining on the spray thrown from the fire lines playing on the flames. A moment afterward, the steeple fell, not fifteen minutes from the time the first tongue of flame swept over the cornice.

"Then everyone within hearing distance heard a muffled boom as the big clock in the steeple fell on the church bell, bringing both with a dull roar to the masonry enforced landing just over the front door of the church. It was the last note of this old church bell."

While the fire was raging, volunteers helped to save furnishings, records, and music. Dr. Edmund J. Kulp, pastor of the First Methodist Church, received notice by telegram that the church was burning while he was vacationing at Estes Park, Colorado. In return Dr. Kulp sent a telegram stating: "Will arrive Wednesday. We will have beauty for ashes."

The weekly newsletter for August 14 stated, "Our beautiful temple of worship is no more. The fire that destroyed it seemed to be raging in our hearts and searing our inmost souls. There were associations so precious about that venerable structure that its loss was the loss of a part of our very selves. But while we are ‘cast down’ we are not ‘destroyed.’ Out of our love will come fresh and abundant sacrifices; as we have ‘freely received’ the splendid heritage of the old Church whose foundations were laid, not in stone and mortar, but in the hearts of the pioneer men and women who were frontiersmen for the Kingdom of God as well as of American civilization, so we ‘shall freely give.’"

The same newsletter reported that a General Building Committee had already been chosen to "build at once and build a better and finer structure than the one that was destroyed." The present building was dedicated in a week of services from April 29 to May 6, 1923.