Unlike the court, the Library of Congress did have its own building, which had just been completed the previous year. The Supreme Court did not yet have a building of its own, so it still operated out of the basement of the Capitol, along with all the Court’s legal documents and law books. While there’s never a good time to have an explosion in a government building, the Capitol at this point in history was perhaps one of the worst places to have a destructive fire. (Source: Library of Congress Public Domain Archive) Valuable law library in the world," home to more thanħ5,000 volumes, and the location of the first telephoneĬall in history, was at extreme risk from the fire. The Supreme Court's Law Library, perhaps "the most But before Nelson and the others could find what had caused the blast, they discovered something even more dangerous – a fire. Īs the group got closer to the origin of the noise, the scene grew ever more chaotic chunks of stone arches blocked paths, heavy steel doors had been blown from their hinges and sent flying across rooms. Nelson raced down a flight of stairs to the main basement where he met up with other employees of the Capitol, including mechanics, engineers, and patrolmen, who all seemed just as confused as he. Somewhere, on one of the two floors below, something had exploded. Ī couple of the giant stones on the exterior of the building even shifted a few inches outwards. The unique acoustics of the Rotunda and Statuary Hall reverberated the horrific sound. Many pathways were completely blocked by debrisĪnd and flames, making the job of extinguishing theįire and navigating the basement even more difficult.Ī great boom shook the floor, roaring through the halls and rocking the building.
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