George Flowers Jr. is a Mississippi State alumnus. He can be contacted at [email protected]. I don’t know if anyone who really knows has ever written the actual facts of why and how [Old] Main burned, but I decided that if anyone hadn’t, maybe, for history’s sake, it should be recorded.
I was a freshman in 1958. Two roommates and I were living in the 200 series (I don’t remember the actual room number), which was really the third floor (there was a “basement” floor). There were five actual stories on the west side.
The room overlooked the north wing of the cafeteria.
Finals for the first semester were concluding, and one of my roommates, Jimmy Parkes, had already finished and had gone home to Greenwood, where I also lived.
I had been up late (approximately 1:30 a.m.) and had just gone to bed when my other roommate, Larry Gray, from Ithaca, N.Y., jumped up and told us to get up. Main was on fire.
Well, that was often – someone would squirt lighter fluid under another door and light it. It never amounted to much and was quickly put out.
I told Larry to forget it; I had to get some sleep before my chemistry final the next morning.
Well, Larry didn’t say anything but was really rushing around. I arose and looked out the windows.
Other people were running up and down the hall then, and I decided to get up and see what was going on.
Three doors down from me, the ceiling was smoldering.
We broke the glass to the fire hose, which had been neatly folded for many years, and stretched it out to the room. When the water pressure hit the hose, it broke apart at every fold.
We then started a “bucket brigade” with garbage cans filled from the shower, but it was too little and too late.
What happened was that the room above the room on my floor had people that really didn’t like the people on my floor. All the water pipes to the sinks were through open holes in the oiled, hardwood floors.
The distance between the floor of the room above and the ceiling of the room below was only a few inches.
The people on the floor above were taking pieces of a foam pillow, lighting them and dropping them into the room below.
The smell was terrible and the smoke even worse. Somehow, one of the pieces got caught between the floor and ceiling, and all the dust and accumulated junk ignited.
When we realized we could not put it out, I went back to my room and started getting things together to take out of the room. About that time, the ceiling tiles in my room were starting to get black. I decided that the fastest way to get my belongings out was to break a window, throw all my things out and then go down and get them.
About as soon as I was finished throwing mine and Jimmy’s things out, the fourth and fifth stories fell off, right on top of all our things.
It was unbelievable how fast the entire building burned. There were firewalls everywhere, but not in the “attic.” The fire went up, circled the entire dorm and then burned downward, finally consuming everything.
At dawn the next day, I remember seeing the eerie skeletons of pipes going where bathrooms and showers once were. I know there are pictures of the remains.
What I didn’t know is whether anyone really knew why and how it started.
For history’s sake, this is a firsthand account.