PHOTOS: It’s 5 p.m. on May 25, 1843, in Tallahassee. For the next three hours, the city would be engulfed in flames.
Blocks of downtown were turned to ash as a fire broke out on the grounds of the Washington Hall Hotel, east of the Capitol. For $2 a day, the hotel provided room and board for guests during Florida’s territorial period (1822–1845) and served as a place for civic and religious activities.
The hotel fire spread north, claiming stores, a blacksmith, numerous homes, offices and other businesses, including those owned by Gov. Richard Keith Call. The courthouse caught fire multiple times but was spared by alert citizens who extinguished the flames. The wooden buildings of the Planter's Hotel, Dorsey’s Auction Room, Perkins Drugstore and the Log Cabin shoe maker’s shop were burned to the ground.