Watts Dormitory: The Other Fire

Most people already know the story of the original Chambers Building burning to the ground on November 28, 1921. However, many do not know that less then two years after Chambers was destroyed, another building also fell prey to fire:Watts Dormitory.

At 11:25 a.m. on a Sunday March of 1923, a student by the name of Albert Wildman was privileged enough to be allowed to miss the morning church service because he was a senior.  He was sleeping-in that morning when he discovered flames on the front end of the third floor hall in Watts  Dormitory.  Wildman quickly sounded the fire alarm and returned to fight the flames, but the fire spread too quickly for him to do much.

The congregation was summoned from church to help combat the fire, which was threatening the dormitories on either side of Watts, as well as an old power house in the rear.  The tireless effort of students prevented further disaster, but the lack of water pressure and the nature of the fire resulted in the total destruction of Watts Dormitory.

Thankfully the few seniors who had been sleeping in acted quickly to begin moving valuable belongings from the first two floors of the building.  Many students came to their aid, but the rooms on the third and fourth floors were too engulfed in flames to allow retrieval of the students’ belongings.  Many of the seniors on the third floor had only enough time to dress quickly and grab a few things that were close at hand before the fire overtook their rooms.  One student even had to use a rope to escape from a third story  window!

Two hours later, the original Watts Dormitory, which had been built in 1908 and was central on campus, was simply red brick walls and smoldering ashes.  The brick veneer had survived the flames, but as it cooled it too began to crumble.  The college lost approximately $45,000, and 49 students were left homeless.  Fortunately, some of the damage was covered by insurance, and there were no casualties.

Perhaps it was due to the loss of two important buildings on campus in two years, both to fire, that the college installed better fire protection in October of 1923.  Every night, four students made their way through each building at intervals of one hour.  More patrols went through the older buildings, while the newer buildings (the new Watts, East and
West Dormitories) were built to be fire-proof.  Today we have fire alarms to alert us to smoke in the dormitories and most of the dormitories are built to be fire-proof, but the Chambers and Watts fires resulted in a much more cautious approach toward combating fires.

–Sarah Adams, student assistant to the Davidson College Archives