The great fire of Portland, Maine, sometimes known as the 1866 great fire of

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, occurred on July 4, 1866—the first

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Man ...

after the end of the American Civil War. Five years before the Great Chicago Fire, this was the greatest fire yet seen in an American city. It started in a boat house on Commercial Street, likely caused by a firecracker or a cigar ash. The fire spread to a lumber yard and on to a sugar house, then spread across the city, eventually burning out on Munjoy Hill in the city's east end. Two people died in the fire. Ten thousand people were made homeless and 1,800 buildings were burned to the ground. This included the federal Exchange Building by which was replaced with the

custom house A custom house or customs house was traditionally a building housing the offices for a jurisdictional government whose officials oversaw the functions associated with importing and exporting goods into and out of a country, such as collecting c ...

. Soon after the fire, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described his old home town: "Desolation! Desolation! Desolation! It reminds me of

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...

, the 'sepult city'."

References

History of Portland, Maine (1886)
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Great Fire of Portland, Maine 19th century in Portland, Maine Great Fire Of Portland, Maine, 1866 Great Fire Of Portland, Maine, 1866 Urban fires in the United States Fires in Maine Firefighting in Portland, Maine Natural disasters in Maine July 1866 events