DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells this story, and I'm gonna do my best to give it the weight it deserves. February 6, 1923. Burkburnett, Texas.
Charley Lee Coe had one plan for that day — take his daughter to the Wichita County Fair. That was it. A simple, fine plan.
The kind of day a man looks forward to. But Charley Lee Coe was not a man who could walk past a neighbor's burning house. He just wasn't built that way.
Coe was an oil field driller — a man who worked in dangerous places for a living, who understood that some situations demand you move toward the trouble, not away from it. He'd lived in Newtown, then settled with his wife Helen and their three children in Burkburnett. He knew his neighbors.
And on that February morning, when he saw fire at a house nearby, knowing he did what he did. He worked his way into that smoke-filled home. Most people, you understand, are going the other direction.
Charley Coe went in. Deep enough to find a bedroom. Deep enough to find Arnold and David Hahn — three years old and one year old — trapped.
A neighbor managed to knock out a door panel, and through that opening, Arnold Hahn was saved. But the flames had their own intentions. Before Charley Coe could get back out, the fire overtook that home.
It claimed the life of David Hahn. It claimed the life of Charley Lee Coe. He never made it to the fair.
In January 1924, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission established a pension for Coe's family. They also awarded him a posthumous Carnegie Gold Medal for his brave actions. A gold medal.
The highest thing they could give a man who gave everything. Some days start with the simplest of plans, and end with a man's name on a medal — and on a marker on the side of a Texas road, so the rest of us don't forget.
What the marker says
On February 6, 1923, Charley Lee Coe made a great sacrifice. Charley was an oil field driller and lived with his wife, Helen (Rosencrants), and three children in Newtown and then in Burkburnett. On the day he was to take his daughter to the Wichita County Fair, Coe saw a fire at a neighbor's house. Coe worked his way through the smoke-filled home and found Arnold and David Hahn (ages 3 and 1) trapped in a bedroom. A neighbor knocked out a door panel through which Arnold Hahn was saved. Flames then overtook the home and claimed the lives of Coe and David Hahn. In January 1924, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission established a pension for Coe's family and awarded him a posthumous Carnegie Gold Medal for his brave actions. (2012)