Children of Bainbridge

The Youth Assembly delegates who perished in the Winecoff fire are remembered in Bainbridge, Georgia. As part of a college assignment, Addie Livingston,17, has written about them. She was asked to present her work to the Rotary Club in Bainbridge and it's been picked up by bainbridgega.com. Livingston deserves an A+ for her poignant and focused remembrance of the tragic event that continues to shape the values of Bainbridge. The article is here.

Anniversary Article Published

To observe the sixty-third anniversary of the Winecoff fire FireFighterNation.com has published on their website an article by Mica Calfee remembering the nation's deadliest hotel fire. FireFighterNation.com is a social/professional networking site for firefighters and emergency medical technicians everywhere. Winecoff Fire co-authors Sam Heys and Allen B. Goodwin were consulted during the preparation of the article. The article is here.

Survivors & Victims' Families Gather

A special gathering was held on the sixty-first anniversary of the Winecoff fire. Survivors, eyewitnesses and the families of the fire's victims and survivors met in the Carnegie Room in the Ellis Hotel on Friday December 7, 2007. The Ellis is the newly refurbished facility located in the old Winecoff Hotel building at 176 Peachtree St. in Atlanta.

Several reunions and remembrances have been held before and they always provide the attendees with answers to nagging questions and a sense of closure for those still affected by the tragic fire. Read an account of this moving event here.

Rome, Ga. Honors Fire Victims

The friends and classmates of four Winecoff fire victims gather on the covered back porch of the town's nicest country club - its golf course splayed out before them - to hear the words. Amid the white columns they mingle. Sixty years on, their lives are entwined the way they inevitably become in a small town. They all know each other's virtues. They even know each other's faults. Few care anymore; most all has been forgiven - they are still bound - sixty years on.
The speaker takes the podium and asks that the day begin with prayer, and it does - from a victim's best friend. He knew them all. They hear what they came to hear. That their lesson will be taught anew. They hear and see that the cast brass plaque they scrimped and saved for so many decades ago has been carefully restored to its original luster. The one with the names on it. The one that honors the victims, their lost friends, the four boys from Rome.
They all remember the day and the grueling uncertainty of not knowing who would return from Atlanta and the scorched ruins of The Winecoff Hotel. The day that binds them still.
They also hear that a new memorial is almost ready to be placed, right downtown, in a sidewalk, in a public place and on public land.
They hear the words of a survivor. They receive the thanks from grateful kin. Their loved ones are remembered.
They watch as candles are lit in honor of the boys and then extinguished with care. They know it is their friends who bind them - the ones who are not there.

Fire Victims to be Honored

The Rome News-Tribune reports that a remembrance and plaque dedication ceremony will be held in Rome, Ga. on July 25, 2007. The four Winecoff fire victims to be honored, were in room 1030 of the Winecoff Hotel when it burned on December 7, 1946.

The Winecoff catastrophe was made all the more tragic by the loss of thirty of Georgia's best and brightest high school students. Each had earned their memberships into a youth assembly to represent their areas in a mock legislative session at the State Capitol.

So beloved and respected were the boys from Rome that now, sixty years later, many of their classmates and others will gather--just to remember them. The details are here

Front Page News !!!

All students of the Winecoff fire are urged to pick up a copy of the Atlanta Journal & Constitution from Monday December 4th to see a fantastic front page story on the remembrance ceremony & reception hosted by the Atlanta Fire Department.

Winecoff Hotel Fire 60th Anniversary

On Sunday, December 3, 2006 the Atlanta Fire Department hosted a special ceremony and reception honoring:
Firefighters
Survivors
Victims’ Families &
Eyewitnesses of the 1946 Winecoff fire

The event was held at
The Spotted Dog Tavern
(formerly Fire Station #11)
30 North Avenue
Atlanta, GA.

Fire Station #11 was the home of some of the first responders to the Winecoff fire.

The City of Atlanta Fire Department's special remembrance marking the milestone 60th anniversary included a memorable ceremony, as well as a book signing of “The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America’s Deadliest Hotel Fire” by Sam Heys and Allen B. Goodwin. Guests, including some of the fire's survivors and eyewitnesses, took the opportunity to share stories and remembrances. There was also an update about the current renovation of the hotel. The program took place in the upstairs meeting room.

To hear WSB Radio's Sandra Parrish's award winning report on this moving event click here.

Large Crowd Attends Winecoff Program

Allen B. Goodwin and Sam Heys gave a lecture on The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America's Deadliest Hotel Fire on Sunday March 5, 2006 as part of a special program at the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum in Atlanta.


The event also included a book signing and began with a reception at 3 p.m. The lecture followed at 4.

The program was part of the Fourth Annual Phoenix Files: A Citywide Celebration of Living Landmarks, sponsored by the Atlanta Preservation Center and 19 Preservation Partners. The award-winning, weeklong event -- March 4-12 -- spotlighted Atlanta's historic sites with 56 events at 30 venues. The Winecoff Hotel building, built in 1913, still stands at the corner of Peachtree and Ellis streets in downtown Atlanta.

The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America's Deadliest Hotel Fire, published in 1993 by Longstreet Press, was critically acclaimed by a dozen Southern newspapers and went into three printings. It is the story of the victims and survivors of the 1946 Winecoff Hotel fire and of the botched investigation that followed the fire, which remains the worst hotel fire in U.S. history with 119 deaths. In the aftermath of the fire, fire codes were changed throughout America.

The program drew a crowd of more than 140 people. Following the comments of the authors, those in attendance with a connection to the fire introduced themselves and spoke briefly..

Among those attending were two Pulitzer Prize winners: Arnold Hardy, who took the famous photo of a woman leaping from the burning hotel, and George Goodwin, an Atlanta Journal reporter who witnessed and covered the fire. Also on hand were two Winecoff survivors - Bob Cox of Hays, Kansas, and Bob Irvin of Atlanta.

Family members of the following Winecoff victims attended - Patsy Uphold, Christy Hinson, Mary Minor, Earnest Weatherly, Mary Stinespring, and Fleming and Grace Winecoff.

Family members of the following survivors were also in attendance - Dorothy Moen Cox, Nelson Thatch, Mildred Johnson, Reid and Cary Horne, and Michael Conners. The daughter of Winecoff firefighter Boots Pittman was present as well.

The program was videotaped and may soon be available at nominal cost from winecoff.org.