On a cold Sunday in February, 1904, a gentleman flicked his cigar butt on the sidewalk in front of Hurst’s dry goods store where today’s Royal Farms Arena now stands. This particular everyday act, however, turned catastrophic as one of the glass “eyes” in the sidewalk meant to bring light into a storage space below was missing. The still smoldering cigar fell right through the open hole and landed on a box of dry goods. The resulting fire burned for more than a day, destroyed over 1500 buildings and caused damages in the order of $100 million (in 1904 dollars).