Nova Scotia Archives
Built Heritage Resource Guide
General View of Windsor, NS, after the Fire of 17 October, 1897
L.S. Loomer describes the fire in Windsor, Nova Scotia: A Journey in History, 1996, p.256: “The fire, said the Journal, anonymously, ‘...wiped out half the township and four-fifths of the main part of the town. Hardly a single place of business remains and between 400 and 500 buildings are in ashes... A district of a mile in length by half a mile in width is nothing but a mass of smoking embers, with ghostly chimneys rising like ugly monuments in a huge cemetery...”
After the fire, George Wright of S.S. Titanic fame came to town and took a series of photographs which he sold for $3.00 for a set of thirty prints, each about two-and-a-half inch square. The proceeds went to the fire’s victims.
Date: 19 October 1897
Photographer: J.W. Livingston
Reference: Nova Scotia Archives Photo Collection: Places: Windsor: Fires / negative N-615