Local photographer T. Hope Cawthon took the photo above on Saturday, September 17, 1898, from the post office, which was then between the train depot (now the Walton County Heritage Museum) and the Hotel Chautauqua (now the Gulf Power building). The photograph shows the train tracks running parallel to Baldwin Avenue between Seventh and Eighth streets. The building on the left was then owned by William Lee Cawthon. His brother Burruss operated a general store on the first floor (now the Big Store). According to notes compiled by Harold Gillis, on Monday, September 19, 1898, at about one o’clock in the morning, Theo Lanz, who was a notary, was awakened by a fire alarm that was connected to his room upstairs in the Cawthon building. There was a fire in the back room of the Cawthon store. He fired his gun to sound an alarm and climbed down a post in front of the store. Gillis noted, “The intense heat from the Cawthon building soon fired the meat market of D. L. McLeod on the corner and rapidly did it move eastward. . . . The freight depot had . . . been ignited and was in ruins. The passenger depot was in jeopardy but was saved. The stores and offices south of the railroad were at different times on fire. The post office was low and could be reached but in spite of this it seemed determined to go. The Chautauqua hotel was on fire several times but was saved.” After the last ember was extinguished, a total of 28 structures had been destroyed, including some homes, the Cawthon building, Landrum’s Drug Store, the New York House, and the Lake View Hotel. The photograph below was taken by T. Hope Cawthon from the same location on Monday morning, September 19, 1898.
