Great Fire of 1901
An Astrological Report
Bridge collapses. Oil spills. Refinery explosions. Catastrophes seize and then overwhelm us with the wreckage of mystery. How could this have happened? We deploy investigators and assemble pieces of the puzzle. We determine causes and detect errors. Reports are written, followed by conclusions and legislation to prevent it from happening again. Rarely, however, can we locate the catastrophe within the rhythm of a larger cycle. Inspectors look at the days and months preceding a disaster, but what if the table was set long before the event happened? Where an investigator is limited to the recent past, the astrologer can look further into the past to find the seeds of damage, and perhaps recovery. The astrologer, like the investigator, visits the astrological debris field to learn from the event.
On May 3, 1901, workers at the Cleaveland Fibre Factory exited for their noontime break and walked past mattresses waiting to be filled with Spanish moss that dried in the bright Florida sun. Next to the Cleaveland Fibre Factory were blocks of wood-constructed factories, churches and homes built from nearby pine forests. Chimney sparks floated past workers’ shoulders, and in the distance, a river offering relief from months of drought.
Jacksonville, Florida, was hot and very dry. The exalted Aries Sun of Spring didn’t just mark a new zodiacal year but also initiated months of drought. When the workers settled in for their lunch, they were unaware that earlier in the day, the Moon inched towards an opposition with the Sun. It was the year’s first lunar eclipse, and the Sun was posed to ignite a frightening display of destruction.
They were also unaware of other events taking place overhead. Days earlier, while on track to rendezvous for the 1901 Great Conjunction, Saturn then Jupiter both turned retrograde in Capricorn. While Jupiter and Saturn reversed course, Pluto rode a chimney spark down into the city. Mars had just risen above the horizon and locked its gaze at the Sun and Moon. Quietly a congregation of gods joined hands and lit a flame.
At 12:20 pm workers responded to a small pile of burning Spanish moss. Small burns like this were common and quickly extinguished, but Mars and Pluto had other plans for the fire. Our pyromaniacs took note of the special occasion. It was the century’s first Lunar Eclipse paired with the imminent Great Conjunction. Instead of the fire being quickly extinguished wind carried the flames to nearby mattresses and then leapt to adjacent buildings. Flames doubled and then tripled as the fire engulfed the city. The streets burned.
Eight hours later, 146 city blocks, 466 acres, and 2,368 buildings would be consumed by the Great Fire of 1901. One hundred and fifty miles away north, residents in Savannah, Georgia, reported Jacksonville glowed orange in the twilight. What they didn’t see was Pluto’s opposition to Uranus and the violent negotiation unfolding overhead. Mars, Pluto, and the fallen Moon’s eclipse guaranteed Jacksonville’s destruction. Her fate was sealed and the death dance completed. Seven souls perished.
To this day, it’s considered the worst metropolitan fire in the American South. Catastrophes of this magnitude rarely occur with just one cause. First, there was drought. Followed by winds carrying factory sparks into piles of dried moss. Next were mattresses placed near wood-constructed buildings. It’s reported that white firefighters refused to help black-owned buildings, and this failure contributed to the fire’s size.
Jacksonville, Florida
Similarly, I contend the astrology of the Great Fire of 1901 prognosticates the collapse of Jacksonville not through a singular lunar eclipse or Pluto-Uranus opposition but rather through multiple lines of tension beginning with the Sun’s ingress into Aries.
The start of Spring not only kicked off months of drought with an exalted Sun in cardinal Aries but also contained a New Moon seed maltreated by a fallen Jupiter and malefic Saturn. At the time of the Sun’s ingress into Aries the Moon was on the receiving end of a superior square from fallen Jupiter and empowered Saturn at 10º Aries. It then heads into a malefic enclosure as it falls between Saturn’s rays at 15º and Mars’s rays at 24º. We see our significator of cities, the Moon, navigating a hostile path. During this enclosure, Jupiter imprints its promise to inflate while Saturn prepares to contract.
By May 3, both the Sun and the Moon were in place for the lunar eclipse carrying imprints from their Aries ingress. Having been on the receiving end of maltreatment and a malefic enclosure the Moon, now fallen in Scorpio, sat across from the Sun in Taurus. This time instead of a superior square from an empowered Saturn, it received a superior square from Mars in Leo. Shortly after the eclipse, as the Moon advanced, it would move into an enclosure between fallen Jupiter and Saturn in Capricorn by sextile. Fallen Jupiter ensured the inflation of fire while Saturn guaranteed its significations; factories and real estate would scorch the Moon’s city. The refusal of white firefighters to save black homes was Jupiter fulfilling its pledge to be a corrupted benefactor. Elsewhere it’s reported that the heat from the fire created water spouts in the nearby river, and we see that possibility with the exact sextile from Neptune to Mars. Finally, we look to the twin planets of death and reinvention with Pluto opposite Uranus.
But first, let’s look at the chart of Jacksonville’s 1877 founding. We note a stellium in Taurus with Saturn enclosed by a dignified Venus and exalted Moon and co-present with Jupiter. Noting the 1901 lunar eclipse occurs on the Taurus-Scorpio axis with Moon now fallen in Scorpio. In other words, Jacksonville emerged into the collective consciousness with powerful and strong signatures from Venus and the Moon while hosting the planets catalyzing expansion and limitation.
More compellingly, however, we see at the time of Jacksonville’s founding that Pluto sits at 0º Aries while Uranus squares Pluto from 5º Capricorn. Uranus would go on to renew its cycle with Pluto in a conjunction at 29º Aries. Time moved Jacksonville forward, and as misfortune would have it, on the day of the Great Fire, Pluto and Uranus were exactly opposite.
Jacksonville formed with a natal promise containing the robust potential of a Taurus stellium but also the inevitable calamity promised with the Uranus-Pluto square. Taurian earth yielded its riches to the city, fed it with resources from its forests and rivers but would also convert those riches into ruin. It’s not a given that fallen cities can rise again. America is pockmarked with places unable to recover after disaster. Perhaps it was dignified Venus paired with an exalted Moon at Jacksonville’s start that provided the grace to rebuild. They imprinted upon Saturn the potential for Jacksonville to renew itself with new factories. As Jupiter and Saturn walked towards their Great Conjunction of 1901 they remembered the promise given to Jacksonville and honored the terms of Jacksonville’s forward expansion and renewal.
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Brilliant writing and astrology investigation. Beautifully unpacked by the multiple charts. Loved this. I feel like I just learned so much on how to approach and think about mundane charts. Thanks, Kelly!