the fire at the Black Spot (1930)

The fire at the Black Spot was a catastrophic arson attack on a segregated Negro non-commissioned officers' club at the Derry Army Air Corps Base, set by the Derry branch of the Maine Legion of White Decency. The blaze killed approximately sixty people, including eighteen members of Company E, and ended the 1929–30 cycle of murder and disappearance in Derry. The event is a central trauma in the town's hidden history, remembered by survivors like Will Hanlon and documented by Mike Hanlon in his unpublished town history.

Background and the Black Spot Club

The Black Spot was an old requisition shed on the base, located near the greenbelt behind West Broadway, that Major Fuller assigned to the black soldiers of Company E after the Town Council complained about them drinking in downtown bars. The men fixed it up themselves, adding windows, a kitchen, and a bar for sodas. By the summer of 1930, a hot Dixieland combo played there on weekends, and white civilians from town—including young people from wealthy families—began to attend, bringing their own liquor. The club became so popular that it drew crowds from Bangor, Newport, and the University of Maine. The Town Council and the Legion of White Decency were enraged by the mixing of races and the perceived violation of social order.

The Arson and the Fire

On a Saturday night in early November 1930, members of the Legion of White Decency, dressed in white sheets, attacked the Black Spot. Some came through the greenbelt from West Broadway; others drove onto the base in a new Packard automobile. They carried torches and two-gallon tins of gasoline. The torches were Louisville Sluggers with burlap wrapped around the fat ends. The men surrounded the club and threw the lit torches through the back windows into the kitchen. The building caught fire almost instantly. Inside, the band was playing loudly, and the crowd was unaware of the danger until the kitchen door burst open in flames. A stampede toward the single front door jammed it shut, trapping many inside. Will Hanlon, who was present, was nearly trampled but was pulled out by Trevor Dawson and Dick Hallorann. Dawson later drove a cargo truck into the side of the building, creating an opening that allowed some to escape. The fire killed about sixty people, including eighteen from Company E, four members of the jazz band, and several white civilians.

Aftermath and Significance

The fire ended the 1929–30 cycle of violence in Derry, sending the entity known as It back into a deep sleep for another twenty-seven years. The Legion of White Decency disbanded in the aftermath, and the event was largely covered up or forgotten by the town's official histories. Will Hanlon, who survived the fire, later told his son Mike that the fire made him a man, and that he saw a giant bird—a kestrel with balloons tied to its wings—hovering over the fleeing attackers. Mike Hanlon, who researched the fire for his unpublished town history, came to believe that the fire was a necessary sacrifice to quiet the town's evil, and that the entity It was present at the event, disguised as a clown in farmer's biballs, shooting a rifle and casting no shadow. The fire is a key piece of evidence in Mike's understanding of Derry's 27-year cycle of horror.