Fire Nearly Destroyed Jensen Beach

Saturday marks the centennial of a landmark event in the early history of the Treasure Coast: the May 3, 1908, fire that destroyed much of fledgling Jensen Beach.The town was founded by John Lawrence Jensen, a Danish immigrant who arrived in the 1880s to set up a pineapple growing concern.The settlement soon became the center of the pineapple industry.
The historic blaze broke out at the worst possible time: between 3 and 4 a.m. on a Sunday. It started at C.H. Munch and Co. One theory, unproven, blamed a cigar igniting sawdust in a spittoon.
“The dread cry of ‘fire’ rang out over Commercial Street,” says an anonymous memoir published in 1962 in the Jensen Beach Mirror.
With no fire department, people formed a bucket brigade, but the fire raced down the main street. People raced to roll 200-gallon fuel drums to safety. One exploded, sending flames 200 feet high.
The blaze wiped out most of the business section, including the Jensen Trading company, the Sneden Boat shop, the James Neal warehouse and grocery store, the Masonic Lodge, the Steinhauser meat market, Tucker’s Bowling Alley, Blocker’s bakery, 16 homes and five rail cars.
It also leveled the town’s lifeblood: the town hall, post office and rail
station.
“Commercial Street is a scene of desolation,” the memoir said. Many property owners had insurance – just not enough.
The famed Al Fresco hotel survived, only to burn down Oct. 17, 1910.
As if the fires weren’t enough, competition from Cuban pineapples, along with local freezes and disease, killed the local industry.
Read More: Historic Jensen and Eden on Florida’s Indian River, by Sandra
Henderson Thurlow; A History of Martin County, by Janet Hutchinson.
Historical Society of Martin County: (772) 225-1961.
www.elliottmuseumfl.org.

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