For editors, reporters and photographers, Sunday, January 29, 1956, was a daylong trifecta of major breaking news stories.
First, they scrambled to cover the death of H.L. Mencken, the Sage of Baltimore, who had been discovered dead in bed in his Hollins Street home. His physician estimated that the elderly newspaperman and author had died sometime between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.
That same morning, at 12:01 a.m., some 2,000 Baltimore Transit Co. motormen and bus drivers, were joined by maintenance workers, began returning their streetcars and buses to car barns and went on strike. Negotiations over increasing the hourly wage from $1.90 to $2.00 along with a reduced work week had broken down.
Then came the deadly denouement, when a fire swept through - in a matter of minutes - an Anne Arundel County social hall where 1,200 men, women and children had gathered on a dreary, cold and damp afternoon for an oyster roast sponsored by Brooklyn's St. Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church.
Joseph B. Ross Jr., a retired county firefighter whose book, Arundel Burning: The Maryland Oyster Roast Fire of 1956, was recently published, recalls that tragic day when 10 people died and hundreds were injured in a stampede for the hall's exits.
For Ross, this became something of a personal journey. When he joined Linthicum's Community Fire Co. Inc. in 1967, he began asking veteran firefighters about the disaster. He also began collecting copies of newspaper clippings and official reports and interviewing survivors.
"At five years old, I have vivid memories of going up to the bedroom window on the second floor of our row home on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn Park to watch the fire with my mother," he wrote. "I remember standing on top of a chair and looking out of the window as she pointed out the bright orange flames and dark smoke in the distance."
The fire at Arundel Park Hall still remains, according to Ross, the "worst public assembly disaster in Maryland."
The hall, co-owned by George E. Stump and Leroy J. Helms, was located in the 4900 block of Belle Grove Road in Brooklyn Park. The main hall, 160 feet long and 80 feet wide, was completed by 1950. Additional rooms, including a kitchen, cocktail lounge, a milk bar, restrooms, storage rooms and an office, were completed later.
Its 12-foot high walls were built of concrete. A quonset-style roof arched over the main hall from which a false ceiling made of a composition material rose 12 feet above its floor.
It was a popular venue for church and fraternal order fundraisers. Nightly bingo games drew solid crowds, and slot machines, which were then legal, also had their devotees. A large neon sign advertising "Bar BQ, Daily Specials and Real Home Cooked Meals," stood along the road.
In addition to visiting the 13,000-square-foor rental hall, customers could stop by its restaurant, open seven days a week, for a milkshake, hamburger and fries, or order a bowl of Delvale ice cream.
"Unfortunately, although the park met the requirements of the fire prevention code, it did not meet the fire protection requirements in the county's building code - a different set of regulations that covered the materials used in construction, sprinkler and standpipe systems, and area restrictions, all of which can affect a fire's ability to spread and public safety," wrote Ross.
The oyster roast was scheduled to end at 6 p.m., but at 4:55 p.m. several men at outside cooking stoves observed black smoke rising from a cornice between the concrete block wall and the wooden kitchen roof.
Charles Johnson, a worker, grabbed a garden hose and from the back of a pickup truck fanned water toward the fire, which had reached the ceiling and roof above the kitchen. Meanwhile, workers in the kitchen saw the fire clawing its way through the ceiling.
Walt Zylka started firing a carbon-dioxide fire extinguisher on the blaze, now spreading toward the ceiling above the main hall.
Still, no one thought it urgent enough to call the Fire Department or evacuate the hall.
As the fire picked up speed and hungrily sought oxygen in the five minutes since its discovery, Ross wrote, "beneath it 1,200 people were completely unaware of what was developing overhead."
Finally, co-owner Helms climbed a ladder. After shutting off the gas to a ceiling-mounted gas-fired heater, he opened a trap door in the ceiling and saw a "red, smoldering fire," wrote Ross. He then asked someone to call the Fire Department.
Newspaper accounts said an orchestra kept playing until the gravity of the situation was finally and tragically realized, and musicians tried to calm the crowd, which was on the verge of a stampede.
Only 40 seconds after Helms had opened the trap door, "large bright balls of orange-red flame burst through the ceiling in the southeast corner of the main hall. Most of the people still in the building were caught completely off guard," Ross wrote.
As William Walterhoefer and his wife made their way toward the door "all hell broke loose," he wrote.
"People screamed and rushed toward the exits. Folding tables, metal chairs, and glass pitchers filled with beer and soda crashed to the floor. The fire now billowed across the east and south wall ceiling with the intensity of a raging wildfire," Ross wrote.
In the melee, couples were separated, and children anxiously searched for their parents in the smoky hell. A bottleneck of the panicked was created, slowing the evacuation.
Then the lights blinked out, and, according to Ross, anyone who was pushed to the floor was trampled.
Lawrence O'Brien, the oyster roast's chairman, told the News-Post the next day that "men behaved like beasts. I saw men beating women to get into a door or window. Men and women shrieked, screamed, and cried - I will never forget it."
The hall's largest door - through which 250 people could have passed in a minute - had been locked to keep non-paying guests out of the oyster roast. It had no "panic hardware, no metal bar that when depressed pops and releases the locking bolt," Ross said.
Engines from the Brooklyn Park fire station were first to arrive at 5:16 p.m. at the horrifying scene. They would be joined by firefighting units from Baltimore City, Linthicum, Glen Burnie, Ferndale, Marley Park, Powhatan Beach, Orchard Beach, Riviera Beach, Earleigh Heights and Lake Shore.
Cars in the parking lot blocked the nearest hydrant, forcing firefighters to pump water from an emergency outlet nine blocks away.
When it was all over, only the building's walls remained. The dead were "huddled pathetically in the northwest corner of the building," reported The Sun, including one who clutched a scorched toy dog.
The 10 dead - all women - were placed in canvas bags and taken to a Glen Burnie funeral home.
One more victim, Andrew Brady, a retired firefighter who worked at the hall as a special policeman - and courageously stayed inside helping people escape until he was dragged out with his uniform on fire - died a week later at South Baltimore General Hospital of severe burns. He was 57.
"Only three minutes elapsed from the time the fire burst through the huge ceiling until the Brooklyn engine arrived and found the entire interior engulfed in flames," Ross wrote.
"One hundred and eighty seconds. Count them, and while you're counting, close your eyes and try to visualize everything you've just read," Ross writes in the conclusion of his book.
A decade would pass before St. Rose of Lima sponsored an oyster roast again.