DTMFall'25_Final - Flipbook - Page 15
Until the Landon Hotel burned in August 1902, one
of the city’s worst disasters, San Angelo had only
the most rudimentary fire-fighting equipment,
with only volunteers to man buckets, water wagon
or, when available, the downtown fire hydrants
which had been installed by Millspaugh as early as
1886 but were not reliably operated by either the
water company or the city. The Landon Hotel,
located on Concho between Chadbourne and
Oakes, was the premier hostelry of San Angelo,
proudly advertising its restaurant and dining
rooms, as well as electricity and water in all the
rooms. The San Angelo Press regularly included
notices about the hotel and the guests staying
there, as well as this brief note, published on
January 22, just months before the hotel burned:
“Mrs. J. C. Landon is proud of her new desk phone,
recently put in by Rust Bros.” Unfortunately, Mrs.
Landon perished in the fire along with seven other
souls; horrified spectators witnessed as she and
several other people who had made it outside to
the second-floor balcony “hesitated to make the
leap, and while they debated, the wall to which the
balcony was attached slowly toppled inward,
depositing them into the vortex of the fire, where
they perished . . .” (Fort Worth Star Telegram, August
11, 1902
“The Press” heartily agreed in its January 7, 1904
article: “We have passed the village stage of civic
life and have emerged into a city–and one worthy
of the pride of every one of its citizens and the
admiration of every visitor. Our fire department
must needs be kept up in proportion to our
municipal growth . . .Let every San Angeloite
congratulate himself that ‘a great San Angelo’ is
assured.” The pretty Fire Station and City Hall that
had been built in 1910 at 14 S. Irving was
susequently occupied by Ma Goodwin’s night club,
San Angelo’s first cafeteria, San Angelo Business
College, Kendall-Wright Motor Company, and
Carpenters Local Union No. 411 until, in 1964,
Central National Bank acquired the property and
the building was razed.
San Angelo City Hall. Photo Courtesy of TexasHistory.unt.edu
The Landon Hotel, circa 1909.
Photo Courtesy of DavickServices.com
The San Angelo Press of June 30, 1904, reported
that, having “hammered at it until the business
men became fully alive to the importance of better
fire-fighting facilities,” the city council had
approved the acquisition of a new hose cart. It had
a hook and ladder apparatus, 1,000 feet of 4-inch
hose and 100 foot of 1-inch chemical hose, and
bore the inscription “No. 1, San Angelo Fire
Department.” The Chief of the Fire Department
was John Freeland, grocer and landowner who was
active in various civic affairs. Freeland had been
impressed by a visit to Brownwood’s fire
department the previous year and come back
convinced that San Angelo needed to do better.
Streetcars came relatively late to San Angelo and
had only a brief run beginning in 1908 before
proving unprofitable and, in 1915, the San Angelo
Power and Street Railway Company ceased
operations. Horse-drawn streetcars had operated
since the 1830’s in large cities like New York and
electric tramlines were available as early as the
1890’s in some cities, but the automobile, put into
mass production around 1910, would displace all
other forms of personal transportation as
America’s favorite.
Horse-Drawn Streetcar in Downtown San Angelo. Photo Courtesy of DavickServices.com
