Charles L. Coe

Charles L. Coe, 30, driller, died saving Arnold N. Hahn, 3, and attempting to save W. David Hahn, 1, from burning, Burkburnett, Texas, February 6, 1923. Arnold and David were in a bedroom of their home, a small one-story dwelling, when the house took fire. The house was of flimsy construction and was lined with heavy paper. Although smoke and flame appeared through cracks of the outer walls, Coe entered, closely followed by another man. Dense smoke filled the house, and Coe led the way through one room into the bedroom, reached a bed, and groped on it for the children, whose location was not known. His companion, seeing a sheet of flame spread over the partition wall through a door in which they had passed and feeling that to remain longer would be fatal, left the house after pulling Coe around to view the flames, but Coe jerked away from him and turned back to the bed. The other man’s hands and face were scorched, but from the outside he hammered out a panel of a door leading into the bedroom, and almost immediately Arnold was thrust out through the hole, followed by a burst of flame. The flames spread rapidly, and part of the roof and sections of the walls had fallen in before the fire was extinguished. Coe, with David in his arms, was found just inside the door through which he had entered the house. Both were burned to death. Arnold was badly burned but recovered.