Template:Did you know nominations/Great Fire of Pittsburgh

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Orlady (talk) 05:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Great Fire of Pittsburgh

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... that the 1845 Great Fire of Pittsburgh (pictured) destroyed a third of the city including the home of what would become the University of Pittsburgh, and the Monongahela House, "the finest Hotel in the west"?

Created/expanded by Agricolae (talk). Self nom at 13:10, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

It would be great if Monongahela House could be at least stubed and linked for the front page display. Categories are needed, but I can add them myself. WP:RED links are missing, although they are not needed for DYKing. An excellent article otherwise.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 05:14, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not at all sure that the Monongahela House (this Monongahela House and not the hotel of the same name built to replace it) does not fall under the 'single event' exclusion for notability. Agricolae (talk) 20:19, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

A somewhat more whimsical alternative Agricolae (talk) 01:17, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

ALT1: ... that in 1845 firefighters could not put out the Great Fire of Pittsburgh (pictured) because in this city known for its three rivers, they had insufficient water.

ALT1 is wrong. "their equipment and infrastructure was insufficient to bring water to the site of the blaze" Nice article. 12KB. Referenced. AGF source. Image good, however the main image in the article will look better. Added it to nom. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 16:35, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, its not wrong, just buried in the article - when they tried to pump all they got was muddy sludge because the reservoir was severely depleted by drought. That being said, it is a bit indirect and I understand not wanting to use it - I was just trying for something different since the first hadn't garnered any interest whatsoever.

As to the image, the painting on the main image is better quality image, but even at full article size it isn't immediately obvious that it is a city fire, let alone at 100px where I couldn't tell what I was looking at. That is why I chose the print rather than the painting. If others see it differently, that's fine with me. I also thought about using the print showing the destruction, but I would have to create a separate image that just shows one of the two depictions that are currently joined in a single file. Any thoughts? Agricolae (talk) 17:57, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Length and dates are OK. Article is well sourced. Sources are offline, so AGF regarding hook facts and plagiarism checks. I do suggest an ALT hook:

ALT2... that the 1845 Great Fire of Pittsburgh (pictured) destroyed a third of the city, including a bank that was thought to be fireproof? --Orlady (talk) 05:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
ALT3... that although the 1845 Great Fire of Pittsburgh (pictured) destroyed a third of the city, one hotel was saved by using gunpowder to blow up surrounding buildings. Agricolae (talk) 05:51, 2 December 2011 (UTC)