Chicago, IL Senate Hotel Fire, Aug 1893

BURNED TO DEATH.

Horrible Fate of Guests in a Chicago Hotel.

The Old Senate Hotel on Madison Street Destroyed by Fire – Seven Persons Lose Their Lives and Many Others Are Injured – The Fire Caused by an Overturned Lamp.

CHICAGO, Aug. 15.-- In a fire which destroyed two upper stories of the three-story Senate hotel at 184 Madison street yesterday morning, five people were killed and five others were so badly injured that they can scarcely recover. At the Cook county and Mercy hospitals six others are moaning with pain in the wards so badly injured as to be unable to tell their names.

One man jumped from a third-story window and was killed. The others were suffocated and burned to death. The first body to be recovered was that of HARRY GODFREY, the 7-year-old son of J. GODFREY, of Buchanan, Mich. Loss on the building and contents is practically total, but as the structure was old and the furnishings cheap the amount will not exceed $10,000.

A restaurant occupied the ground floor and the Senate hotel the two upper ones. It contained thirty-six rooms and held thirty guests Sunday night.

The fire started in the office of the hotel and is supposed to have been caused by the overturning of an oil lamp. By the time the night clerk had discovered that the building was on fire the flames were climbing from the starting point on the second floor up the stairway to the third floor and smoke was pouring from the windows. He raised the cry of fire and then made his escape down the front stairway. As the guests awoke their shrieks were heard and half-dressed forms began to appear at the windows.

Ladders were run up by the firemen to the second and third stories, but before they could begin the work of rescue a number of the panic-stricken guests had leaped to the pavement below. The fight with the fire did not last long, the flames being subdued in the course of thirty minutes. The day clerk, who is supposed to be responsible for the accident, immediately disappeared after the fire broke out.

The Ohio Democrat New Philadelphia, Ohio 1893-08-17

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