On the night of October 31, 1890, a fire in the Robert Hallcock City Livery Stable ravaged downtown Chillicothe. Fortunately, no one lost their lives, but all property on both sides of Second Street from the middle of the 900 Block (Odie’s and Little Shop of Hoarders) to Chestnut Street (City Park) was completely destroyed. The Peoria Fire Department sent equipment on the Rock Island RR to help fight the blaze but turned out to be of no use due to insufficient water source and some defective hoses. The inferno was reported on in the New York Times for three days.

As always follows such events, the source or cause of the fire becomes a major topic. Today, Crime Scene Investigators (CSIs) and Fire Marshals would descend upon the location and determine what actually happened. But these services didn’t exist back then, so who or what started the fire was left up to anyone who had an opinion. Today, the date of the fire is immediately connected to the cloudy and scary activities of goblins and ghouls and spooky things we attribute to the celebration of Halloween. 

Just for explanation, “Halloween” originated about 2000 years ago as a Celtic Celebration called Samhain (pronounced sow-in) primarily in Ireland, England, and France where it observed the conclusion of harvest and summer activities. The celebration became merged with a wide array of different customs and religious celebrations (All Saints Day, All Hallows Eve, All Souls Day) throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, and eventually the USA. Trick or treat activity is believed to come from the English “All Souls Day” where poor people would go door-to-door to beg for food in exchange for a promise to pray for the donor family’s dead relatives. 

But what about the devastating Halloween Night fire in Chillicothe in 1890? Accusations and theories flew like vultures over “road kill.”  The idea of ghouls and goblins was not ignored by some. To those people, ghouls and goblins were known to be small, mischievous, devilish creatures of the night, and the setting of the fire could easily be the work of such demons.

But logical and practical people (you and me) discount the above conclusions and ask the questions: How, who and why? When is not a problem. Mr. King, owner operator of his saloon on the NE corner of Second and Pine Streets, was reminded by his wife to secure their back door at about midnight. He looked outside and saw glowing fly ash rising upward over the City Stable which was located on the east side of the alley south of Pine Street. King sounded the alarm and soon most of the residents living in what was the “business district” of Chillicothe, responded and set up a bucket brigade to fight the fire. The heat rising from the fire churned the cool night air and fire quickly reached the carriage and buggy shed next to the stable, then Daugherty’s saloon on the corner of Second Street. 

The lone hand-pumper chemical fire wagon arrived but was soon made useless by property owners arguing over which building to save. The winds spread the fire across Second Street working southward, then north across Pine Street. As heat swirled the wind, it jumped across Second Street and burned until everything north of Pine was consumed. To this day, the fire origin has not been determined. How could we confirm the ghoul and goblin thing?

The first “Halloween” Celebration reported in the US was in Kansas in 1914.