The Two Fires That Shaped Boston - The Great Fire and Cocoanut Grove Fire

56 Dedham Street,Dover MA 02030

19 October, 2022

Description

A Talk By Stephanie Schorow  Presented by The Dover Historical Society All are invited, free admission, refreshments Stephanie Schorow will be introduced by James Cavan, president of the Dover Historical Society and member of the Cocoanut Grove Memorial Committee. He had relatives who were among the 492 people who died as a result of the Cocoanut Grove Fire. Next month marks the 150th anniversary of the Great Boston Fire which swept through Boston for two days, leaving the downtown in ruins and the population traumatized. Stephanie Schorow will recount the fire’s history from the foolish decisions that predicated it to the heroics of firefighters who fought it. Of special local interest is the story of John S. Damrell, the chief of the Boston Fire Department at the time of the Great Fire. An early champion of fire codes and standards which were finally adopted after the fire, Damrell later retired to The Maples his farm on Main Street here in Dover. An updated version of Stephanie Schorow’s 2005 book, The Cocoanut Grove Fire: A Boston Tragedy, is being published this month. In it, she details the gripping story of the worst nightclub fire in American history which killed 492 people and sent over 1,000 people to hospitals in World War II Boston. As a result of the fire’s magnitude and the investigations that followed, the Cocoanut Grove fire has been responsible for life saving medical advances in burn treatments, overhauled building codes, and improved safety regulations that have saved countless lives over the last 80 years. Stephanie Schorow, veteran journalist who has worked for the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the Associated Press as well as other media, has written eight nonfiction books on Boston history including The Great Boston Fire: The Inferno that Nearly Incinerated the City and The Cocoanut Grove Fire: A Boston Tragedy.