HUNTSVILLE — After morning broke over Huntsville 30 years ago today, the smoke from a fire that had been raging since at least 1 a.m. filled the skies, and the hilltop in the center of campus was conspicuously missing a beloved landmark.

Old Main was gone, leaving a hole in the landscape that a Huntsville Item reporter at the time compared to a missing tooth.

Old Main had stood since 1889, a marvel of Victorian Gothic styling and home to classrooms and a recital hall, the Peabody Memorial Library and stained glass windows.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 12, 1982, the building caught fire. By dawn, it was almost completely destroyed.

The fire was hot enough to catch nearby Austin College Building on fire. Exhausted firefighters were able to save it, and now Austin College is the oldest building on the SHSU campus. Still standing, it is under renovation.

Huntsville Fire Chief Tom Grisham was among those battling the blaze as one of the few paid city firefighters. Grisham, who had been a Huntsville firefighter for six years in 1982, remembers the glow in the pre-dawn sky that early morning.

“It was well on its way when we got the call,” he said. “I don't know if it was freezing or not, but it was a cold night. I lived on Fish Hatchery and when I got to the top of Fish Hatchery and (Highway) 30 East, I could see the glow. The roof was completely involved by then.”

The fire started in the attic or upper floors of the building, though Grisham said an official cause was never released by the State Fire Marshal's Office.

“I don't know that they ever could pinpoint exactly what happened,” he said. “Rumors were going around about a heating or air conditioning unit catching fire. There was never was anything mentioned about arson, especially the way the attic was on fire. If it had started on the lower floors, you might have suspected something happened. Most of the stuff that was in it was still in it. Nobody had vandalized it.”

By the 1940s, Old Main was already showing its age and its aging wiring sometimes caused lights to catch on fire during performances in the auditorium, according to SHSU’s online history of the building.

Rumors blamed, at the very least, a history of institutional neglect.

Longtime residents working in shops along the downtown square still gossip about the cause of that fire with others who remember the night Old Main’s bricks rained down upon firefighters and other bystanders and its heaving walls huffed and roared, sucking in oxygen to feed its burning interiors.

“It was really, really sad — almost like watching a loved one die,” said Lisa Trow, who helped report on efforts to save the historic structure for the local newspaper. ”I had classes in Old Main and my father performed on stage there in the ‘presscapades’ with Dan Rather.”

Mayor Mac Woodward was a young man living in the Avenues when Old Main caught fire. He didn’t learn of the blaze until the following morning.

“I remember getting up that morning and finding out that Old Main was pretty much destroyed,” he said. “My worry was about the Austin College Building. It is the oldest building on campus and a true historic landmark. It was tragic — just a sad day in Huntsville. It was a shock to everyone.”

The drought season of 2011 sparked wildfires across the state, many in Walker County. Grisham said though that  fire season was memorable, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the memories of Old Main going up in flames.

“There’s not a comparison,” he said. “We did lose some homes this summer and a lot of natural ground cover, but Old Main will never come back. The natural environment will eventually recover.”

Grisham said most firefighters would feel the same – a significant building catching fire is no comparison to a wildfire. Especially, Grisham said, when that building holds such a special place in the hearts of residents.

“The sentimental value attached to Old Main – she was a grand old building,” he said. “A lot of people just took Old Main for granted and assumed it would always be there.”

While firefighters continue to battle the blaze, Grisham said, the SHSU campus became a war zone. People walked, shell-shocked, unsure of where to go or what to do. Students and faculty formed a bucket brigade to try and save the Austin College Building.

“There was chaos – unbelievable chaos,” he said. “We had bricks and walls falling. It was hard to get apparatus positioned where they would not be on a terrible grade... the ladder trucks were hard to set up. Everything was on a hill. We were using a 1952 100-foot ladder truck. Without that old truck, we never would have gotten enough water on the Austin College Building to save it.”

In the 30 years since the Old Main fire, Grisham said, no other fire has stands out like this one in the hearts and minds of Walker County residents.

“There were Sam Houston students and faculty there with tears in their eyes,” he said. “We have had some big fires since, but none of them were as significant as Old Main.”

The architectural sister building to Old Main still stands on the campus of Texas State University-San Marcos. Built in 1903, it holds the College of Fine Arts and Communications and Mass Communications.

For more information on SHSU’s Old Main, visit http://www.buildingshsu.com/m/main_building.php.