Q: At a recent visit to the Millennium Gate Museum, I saw a monument dedicated to Atlanta citizens who had died in the Orly crash and Winecoff fire. Also on one side there was a reference to the Great Fire of 1917, but only one name. Can I assume that this great fire killed only one? Can you tell more information about these tragedies?
—Tom Wilder, Roswell
A: The memorial outside the Millennium Gate Museum is called the Millennium Gate Cenotaph and recognizes Atlantans who have died in tragedies or accidents throughout the city's history.
Plaques on four sides of the rectangular monument lists their names, and in some cases, has “UNIDENTIFIED,” if nothing is known about the person.
The four plaques include: the Siege of Atlanta (1864), the Winecoff Hotel fire (1946), the Orly plane crash (1962) and the plane crash on Mount Kenya (2003), in addition to listing four Atlantans who were killed in the past 100 years.
They include Bessie Hodges, who was the only person to die in the Great Fire of 1917, William Alexander Scott II, who owned the Atlanta Daily World before he was murdered in 1934, Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated in 1968, and his mother Alberta Williams King, who was killed at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1974.
Here’s a more detailed account of each of the tragedies.
- Siege of Atlanta: The plaque lists three people by name and 17 unidentified people who died during the bombardment of the city by Union forces in 1864.
- Winecoff Hotel fire: The deadliest hotel fire in the U.S. claimed 119 lives on Dec. 7, 1946. The hotel, at 176 Peachtree Street, was considered fireproof because of its modern construction, but didn't have fire escapes, a sprinkler system or fire doors.
- Orly crash: Atlanta was devastated on June 3, 1962, when 106 of the city's arts community and family members were killed in a plane crash at Orly Field near Paris. The Memorial Arts Center – now called the Woodruff Arts Center — was built in their honor.
- Mount Kenya crash: Twelve members of the Brumley family, including Atlanta doctor George Brumley Jr., were killed when their plane crashed on Mount Kenya on July 19, 2003. More than 3,000 people attended the memorial service at Trinity Presbyterian Church.
The fire of 1917 consumed about 300 acres of the city, most of what is now known as Old Fourth Ward, on May 21, 1917.
Only Hodges died, but not from the flames.
It was reported that she had a heart attack as she watched her home burn.
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