The city’s first fire was financially devastating. At 2 a.m. on Feb. 3, 1882, a blaze broke out in what the Galveston Daily News described as “Sam Wright’s elegant new residence,” a boarding house valued at

$5,000.

Residents narrowly escaped in the chilly winter air. One boarder lost his business papers said to be worth $4,800. The house and its contents, a total loss, were not insured. Complicating firefighting was the fledgling city’s lack of water.

Townspeople relied on “water wagons” well into the 1890s, a wheeled conveyance that sucked water from Knob Creek’s springs and shallow wells. Not until May 1883 did the city award a franchise to a water company to provide a continuous flow, but the project faltered. The city solved the problem in September 1883, when the Temple Water Works Co., a water subscription enterprise, incorporated.