We had scarcely finished placing the men when, inside, the building was made almost dark as night by a mass of black smoke that swept in upon us just ahead of the advancing flames; then, following, came a tremendous shower of red hot cinders, big and small, which fell on our building as thick as hail in a storm, and piled up on the roof in drifts nearly two feet deep at one place against a fire wall for a distance of twenty feet.

— Frank A. Leach, 1906 · Recollections of a Newspaperman (1917) · via the Internet Archive

Why it's here: Historic: Leach was superintendent of the Mint, which held a third of the United States’ gold reserves. Its staff fought the fire from inside, and it was one of the few buildings in the burned district to survive, helped by a well in its courtyard.