Camden Parlor Talk: The Cleveland School Fire

Presented by: Ann-Chadwell Humphries

In 1923, on the last day in this two-story wooden school, people packed the house for the school play. In the third act, an oil lantern fell to the floor. Everything caught fire. Relatives threw children out windows, slid others down outer walls. The seventy-seven souls who perished—only thirteen recognizable—were laid to rest in a mass grave behind Beulah Methodist Church. The Cleveland School Fire ignited the nation’s attention to fire prevention: codes, drills, alarms, water, non-combustible materials. A monument stands beside a replica of the country school in rural Kershaw County.