Dallas Fire-Rescue held a ceremony at a station downtown Wednesday to honor four firefighters who died in the line of duty on February 16, 1964. The fire destroyed a restaurant on Commerce Street called Golden Pheasant.
Firefighters James K. Bigham, James R. Gresham, Jerry T. Henderson, and Ronald E. Manley were killed. The fire was the deadliest single call in Dallas Fire-Rescue history.
"They not only paid the ultimate sacrifice to this city but to this department," Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Dominique Artis said at a memorial Wednesday.
The memorial took place at Station 18 near Griffin and Field downtown. Firefighters who responded that day and the families of those who died attended.
"He was the most Christian man, wonderful husband, happy all the time, loved life, loved his daughter," Dot Yates, James Gresham's wife said.
Yates says Gresham had agreed to work in place of another firefighter who wanted to take a day off. She said the other firefighter was "brokenhearted", but she said it was God's will.
"Every day I wonder what was happening during his last breaths, and I know he was thinking about me and our daughter," Yates said.
"You never knew what you were going to get," Bobbie Averitte, who was one of the firefighters who responded that day said. "People bailing off the top of buildings, mattress fires at hotels, car wrecks. There's always something going on downtown."
Averitte said he was ordered into the basement of the restaurant. He said he went down a ladder and when he opened the door, an explosion blew him back to a wall.
"It was a compression of all those floors dropping," Averotte said. "I was dazed; I got up and couldn't find the ladder. It was knocked down. I was just thumbing around."
He said other firefighters saw his helmet sticking out of the fire and rescued him.
"They came back and dragged me out of the hole and laid me out in the middle of Commerce," Averitte said. "When I got my mind going again, they told me Grisham was missing. I knew where he was, and I said, 'I know where he is.' They stopped me from running back in there because the front door was just straight down. He wasn't there anymore."
Averitte said he was glad to reconnect with other firefighters who were there that day and with family members of those who died. He said the family of any firefighter is affected when they hear about an injury or death in the line of duty.
"It's extremely hard on families, especially when somebody in the area where their husband or relative or loved one works, something happens. They immediately want to know who it was," Averitte said.
At the ceremony, Dallas Fire-Rescue rang bells signaling 1-1 to "signify the fires of life were out and the battles of life were over" and 6-6 to signify "our friends can return to the quarters prepared for them."
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