ROCKLAND — High school sophomore Gil Merriam, some of his siblings, and his father rushed from their Mechanic Street home after seeing an unusually red sky from their dinner table. They headed straight to Stanley’s Garage where the family car awaited maintenance. Studleys Furniture Company, now where Time Out Pub resides on Main Street next to Harbor Park, had caught fire on December 12, 1952. The family auto was only a few businesses away.

The car had lost its steering mechanism; the only way to direct the course of the vehicle was to kick the tires. The family managed to save the car, but only by kicking and urging it across the lot.

On the north side of town, Gil’s classmate, Ben Perry, worked as a short-order cook at Jack’s Lunch on Camden Street, directly across from what is now Roselyn’s Restaurant.

Though Ben lived farther north of the restaurant at the time, the glow of the sky, along with patrons’ reports of the fire, drew him toward the scene after his shift.

Thirteen fire departments from Bangor to Brunswick answered the call that evening. The wind blew up Park Street from the east, according to Merriam. Tiny cinders were blown from the burned furniture store, then the Rockland Hotel (Park Street Grille), then several other buildings. A three-story brick building (Brass Compass) burned. The Bayview Hotel and buildings between Myrtle and Park Streets also burned.

“Union and Park Streets were a tangle of hoses,” Merriam said.

Just up from the current Rite Aid stood the Park Theatre, which was saved by a shift in the wind and the fact that rain had moistened the ground and the structures during the day.

Even so, when Ben walked into the area, still adorned in white shirt and white pants, a guy yelled out, “Hey kid, you want to help?”

Ben has always been an inquisitive person, known already for having taken a book of matches to a curtain that resulted in a burned-down shed.

Soon he was up a ladder outside Woolworths (Planet Toys), an Indian Pump strapped to his back, with instructions to spray every cinder that he saw.

An Indian Pump is a container with water, an attached hose, and a handle that the user can manually pump. Perry estimated his pump to weight 40-50 pounds when full. When his was empty, he reloaded, many times over the course of many hours.

To the west, Thomaston Fire Department held the line, keeping the fire from spreading west.

As Gil walked to the other side of the fire from him, a radio broadcaster from WRKD neared and asked Gil to describe what he saw. Gil complied. Only later did he learn that ABC News had sent his description national.

When Ben could no longer lift a pump, he went home. As he walked in the door, his white clothing no longer white, his mother met him. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned toward him.

“Did you start that fire?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “But I did help to put it out.” 

Click here for a list of Rockland’s major fires, and 2015 statistics.