Babbs Switch Fire

Babbs Switch Fire

The Babbs Switch Fire on December 24, 1924 killed thirty-six people in a one-room school house at Babbs Switch, Oklahoma, USA. Whole families died and more than half the dead were children.

The fire broke out during a Christmas Eve party when a lighted candle decorating a Christmas tree came in contact with the cotton trim on a Santa Claus suit. The flames spread quickly over the entire room. Contributing to the deaths were screened over windows and a door that opened inward.

The nationwide publicity over the fire led to stricter fire safety codes for schools and other public buildings.

Fiction

* Beard, Darleen Bailey. "The Babbs Switch Story". Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0374304750
* Grossnickle, Mary Edens. "Mary, Child of Tragedy: The Story of the Lost Child of the 1924 Babbs Switch Fire". Schoonmaker Publishers, 1980 (first published as a true story but later discredited).

External links

* [http://rebelcherokee.labdiva.com/babbsfire.html Babbs Switch Fire] on an Oklahoma Prairie Tales site
*


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  • Babbs, Oklahoma — Babbs (Babbs Switch) is a small rural community in Kiowa County, Oklahoma. It was named for Edith Babbs Babcock. Babbs was the scene of the nationally known Babbs Switch Fire on December 24, 1924, in which 36 people died in a school fire. Many of …   Wikipedia

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  • List of unincorporated communities in Oklahoma — This innovative grain elevator was built circa 1920 near the small community of Ingersoll. Unincorporated communities in Oklahoma do not have a formally organized municipal government. Rather, residents rely on the county government for services …   Wikipedia

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