Berrydale: the Road Camp fire records

Read the investigation

• Berrydale’s Locked Barracks: What the Records Reveal About the Fire That Killed 38

  Newly recovered state files name the dead, trace changes to keys and wooden camps, and preserve families’ unanswered questions. They also point directly to the evidence still missing from the public record.

• Berrydale: What Investigators Said About the Road Camp 12 Fire

  Two days after the Berrydale fire, a coroner's jury blamed three prisoners who died in it and found no neglect by the guards. The newspaper reports, official records and later accounts preserved since then do not all agree with one another.

• Road Camp 12: The Berrydale Fire That Killed 38 Prisoners

  On a Sunday night in 1967, fire swept through a wooden prison barracks in the Florida Panhandle. Fifty-one men were inside. Only thirteen survived.

Dates and differing time reports

• July 16, 1967: The fire at the Jay/Berrydale prison. The official report estimates 9 p.m. Central Daylight Time; Bill Dingwall’s interview reports a disturbance around 9:30 p.m.; the initial AP report gives 10:42 p.m. for the first fire alarm. These reported events and clock times have not been reconciled.
• July 19: Jimmy Copeland’s death brings the total from 37 to 38 in the official account.
• August 15: Corrections correspondence describes retaining a second exit key with the wicket officer.
• September 7: Officials conduct a barracks fire test at Live Oak; subsequent board minutes summarize it.

Official investigation and correspondence · Pensacola newspaper pages · Initial AP report.

The people in the records

Read the archive’s people index, including all 38 victim names and 13 survivors. It separates documented roles from information still unknown. Earl Frank Hoffman and Earl Evans are distinct people; conflicting newspaper names are not silently merged.

The guard named D. C. Nelson in Dingwall’s article appears as D. Coker Nelson in the official personnel list. The AP report names assistant warden G. C. Mayne Jr. separately. Earlier G. C. initials for Nelson in our first article have been corrected.

Records still needed

The original signed inquest return, full transcript and investigation appendices remain distinct from the official report’s summaries. The reporting also seeks camp-level follow-up inspections, closure records and the complete Live Oak test report. Each article links its source notes; no missing testimony has been reconstructed.