HOTEL GUESTS FLEE FIRE BY LADDER ROUTE.

THIRTY-FIVE HAVE CLOSE CALL IN CENTRAL AT ONEONTA.

FLAMES CAUSE $100,000 LOSS.

EMPLOYE FOUND DEAD ON TOP FLOOR OF STRUCTURE -- BLAZE STARTS NEAR ELEVATOR SHAFT AND WORKS DESTRUCTION QUICKLY.

Binghamton, Jan. 16. -- Fire this morning destroyed the Central Hotel at Oneonta and did about $100,000 damage and resulted in the death of JACOB HEDINGER, an employe of the hotel, who was suffocated on the top floor.
The fire started at 3:40 o'clock in a cinder box near the furnace in the hotel basement. The box was near an elevator shaft, up which the flames rapidly made their way, shutting off the thirty-five guests in the house from the stairs.
All of these guests, in scant attire, escaped by ladders or were carried out by firemen, losing all of their clothing and other possessions.
The damage to the hotel was $60,000. Other losses were FRANK A. HERRIEFFE, gents furnishings, $15,000; C. H. BORST, grocery, $2,000; TOWNSEND BROS., hardware, $3,000. The office of the National Express and INGRAHAM'S barber shop were also destroyed.
A. CAMERON, of New York, represent in the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, one of the hotel guests who escaped from the fire by means of a fire rope, came to Syracuse after the destruction of the hotel and registered at the Vanderbilt Hotel. The fact that MR. CAMERON did not register at the Windsor Hotel, as did other guests after the fire, led to a report that he had failed to escape.
"It was pretty warm coming down that rope," said MR. CAMERON last night. "My overcoat was burned some. I threw my traveling bag out of the window and saved my belongings, but many of the guests were lucky to get out, clad in their pajamas. One guest, a fire insurance man, attired only in his pajamas, had to jump from a window. Some of the guests had their hands blistered in sliding down the ropes. Others were taken down ladders by firemen. It seemed to me that the entire hotel was a mass of ruins in half an hour. The fire cut off all possibility of getting out on the elevator or by the stairs."

The Post-Standard Syracuse New York 1910-01-17
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!