Added: 4 years ago
From: ClevelandPublicLib
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  • Check out folk singer Jackson C. Franklin - he was heavily burned in this fire and mentally he never recovered. Terribly sad tragedy!

  • I believe the first and second floors contained classrooms. What was on the third floor? Besides the furnaces/boilers, what else was in the basement? Would any children have been down there when the fire started? I find it curious that only two teachers (and no principal or janitor) died in the blaze. Apparently most of the adults managed to escape while leaving the children behind to perish...

  • @xxmoviemakerxxx Supposedly the cause of the fire was "an overheated steam pipe touching a floor joist". I'm no expert, but the kindling temperature of a heavy wooden floor joist must be several hundred degrees. On the other hand, if someone wedged a newspaper between the pipe and joist to muffle a rattling pipe, it wouldn't take long to go up in flames...

  • I heard the myths as a schoolkid in East Cleveland. In fact, there was a mixing up of facts I think about an orphanage in England and children being crushed at the bottom of a stairwell in a rush for Christmas gifts, and it was not even fire. I went to the Prospect School on Euclid Avenue in East Cleveland and then Victory Park elementary school in South Euclid, live in France now. I graduated from Brush in '75. Fascinating footage. Really interesting. Shared and uprated.

  • Folks, lets get this straight! The Gore Orphanage fire was NOT in any way, shape or form related to the Collinwood School fire!

    There's PROOF that the Gore Orphanage was already abandoned when the fire there broke out - - no dead kids; no hauntings; nothing spooky to see here,people...move on.

    The Collinwood fire DID happen and it DID claim the life of many children.

    Why people are even posting about the Gore fire is just plain stupid since there is a Gore Orphanage YT page.

  • my great grandmas cousin (Robbie Wichert) died in the fire, and I just found out after looking up my ancesters.

  • I have 8 post cards in my collection of the Lake View fire. They're pretty disturbing. Very morbid for post cards.

  • My great-grandfather's youngest brother, Patrick Bewley, was one of the students who died in that fire. From what I heard, he was 6 or 7 years old. The banshee was not reported to have been heard @ his death or funeral.

  • This particular event is the "kernel of truth" behind a popular urban legend amongst school kids on Cleveland's west side. The legend changes the location of the fire to an (at-the-time closed in reality) orphanage south of Vermilion. Teenagers regularly visit the site, which is off Gore-Orphanage Road, as it is alleged to be "haunted" by the ghosts of the children who died - although, as stated, the tragedy did not occur there but at Collinwood.

  • @melliferal...Well (not to dispute you, but...) there really WERE (and ARE) some strange goings-on out at the Gore Orphanage site. Nothing remarkable enough to capture the attention of "Ghost Hunters" but definitely enough to surpass mere Urban Legend.

    Its remote...its hard to get to and find...but once you're there in the woods and KNOW you're "on location" it is SURREAL and SCARY as hell!!!!!

    SOMETHING outside of a random 'house fire' happened there!

  • To 34shemeka......You are one sick, warped SOB.

  • I grew up in Collinwood, attended Memorial in the late 70's. I remember the school closing down when I was just out of the 4th grade in 1979 due to forced busing, we were all then sent to Oliver Hazard Perry.  One thing I remember was the beautiful architecture outside and in, the auditorium was amazing. It was sad to see it rot away. My mother-in-law still lives across the street. It still gives me eerie feelings and also great schoolyard memories of days past.

  • i miss my italian neighborhood in collinwood what up combars 1980-1997,the neighborhood; salute.grandrapids mi

  • I'm with samste. I feel sorry for the kids who died, but as for the school itself I could care less

  • I lived 5 minutes away from there if not less, i lived on arcade next to st.clair, i remember my grandparents telling me about that fire and i remember the building is still there at least it was 8 years ago when i lived there

  • yeah i agree with what Reby7492 because I met the guy that wrote a boook about this, he was there on career day. But its not a elementary school its just called "Memorial" which frankly btw I still don't understand. But since I found out about Coillinwood school all I can think now is that the school might be haunted but hay its just meh :-Y

  • hi do you happen to know the name of the book written about this fire?? or the author's name?? i'm looking for information on it. thanks much :)

  • Did you find the information you were seeking?

  • yes thank you! :)

  • Author John Stark Bellamy has a chapter about the Collinwood Fire in his book Cleveland's Greatest Disasters.

  • I don't know why but watching old movies entertain me....

  • This isn't a movie. It's footage of a tragedy. Just FYI.

  • what the hell is the matter with you? that's cold!

  • whats cold what did i say? all i said was that i didnt care what it was called!

  • I loved it too in the 70s, broke my heart to see what happened after. Hopefully it can turn around again.

  • There may still be hardworking people there but nobody can tell me the "ghetto mentality" isn't a major force. Being poor doesn't mean people have to smoke crack, steal plumbing for scrap, stick a gun in somebody's face for a cheap cell phone and generally act like animals.I went through there the other night though and saw some positives-new construction, new businesses, some well-kept houses so obviously some people are trying to turn things around and I apologize to those who are.

  • @Devorah217. That is for the rich.

  • I lived there for fourteen years so I most certainly do know what I'm talking about. But thank you for reminding me of the people I left to get away from.

  • Collinwood used to be filled with hardworking people who were poor but didn't feel they needed to be thugs. Went to work, took care of the house, sent their kids to school, went hungry sometimes. Now it's just gangs and boarded up houses. Sad.

  • Wow post more

  • I am from collinwood in cleveland ohio. they rebuild the school right down the street. the old collinwood school still stands. after the fire the city cleaned it up and made it a memorial site. collinwood is now a highschool

  • The city didn't "clean it up" They tore down the original school. It was rebuilt next to the footprint of the original school and was named "Memorial Elementary" They used the footprint from the original building, to construct the Memorial Gardens. Memorial was torn down several years back (it had been closed for a number of years) to make way for a new state of the art Memorial Elementary. The garden is still on the site, much smaller though.

  • hi, do you have any information on this fire specifically?? i'm researching it and trying to contact those on this message board who seem to know about it or have lived in the area. thanks :)

  • hi, i was wondering since you are from collinwood if you have any information about this specific fire?? i'm researching it. thank you ;)

  • Wow. I'm so surprised this footage even exists. I just learned a minute ago that the doors only opening in was untrue. A chilling and terrible event.

    Thank you for uploading.

  • I've read that this terrible fire lead to the creation of modern school safety practices, like fire drills. An old Plain Dealer article covering the fire, if I remember correctly, said that parents had rushed to the school and - in some cases - were trying to pull their kids out of the crush in the doorway, but they couldn't get them out. Unbelievable. I'm glad that the new school still remembers them.

  • just incredible. look at htose buildings...how did people make it through those years? that fire is so sad. wonder why 19 "unidentified" bodies- don't they know who was there?

  • They surely knew who was missing but probably couldn't identify the individual bodies.

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