March is Women's History Month and all month long Fox 40 is recognizing notable figures from the Southern Tier, like the woman who is remembered as the hero of Binghamton's deadliest fire.
July 22nd, 1913 was a sweltering hot day in the City of Binghamton. On Wall Street, employees at the Binghamton Clothing Company were opening up windows to try and catch a breeze.
“They made overalls. Had about 100 employees," says Roger Luther, the Broome County Historian, "Nellie Connor, at that point, had worked there for about 30 years." Nellie Connor was the forewoman on the fourth floor of the factory.
“By all reports, she was loved by her employees," says Luther. The workers Connor supervised were mostly immigrants and mainly women. On that hot July afternoon, workers started to notice the building seemed to be getting even hotter. Sometime around 2:30pm, someone discovered a small fire that had started under the staircase.