48 DIE IN FIRE THAT DESTROYS SMALL HOTEL IN DOWNTOWN HOUSTON.

Houston, Tex., Sept. 7. (SP) -- Forty-eight men perished when fire swept a small, ancient hotel here today.
Forty-four of them never got out of the three-story Gulf Hotel at Preston and Louisiana streets in midtown Houston. Justice of the Peace W. C. REGAN said evidence indicated that nearly all of the screaming, terrified victims trapped in the burning structure, were suffocated or asphyxiated before they were burned.
They died fighting to get down the one fire escape not blocked off by the flames. Two died in hospitals. Thirty-two were injured and 16 of these were released after treatment. Some of the men were near death from their burns.
It was Houston's worst fire and the costliest disaster in the state since the New London schoolhouse explosion which took 294 young lives March 18, 1937.
"It was the most horrible thing that I have ever seen in my career," said Assistant Fire Chief GEORGE RICHARDSON, 30 eyars[sic] a fireman.
Men screamed in agony when LLOYD BROWN reached the scene of the fire.
"I saw men crawling down the fire escape," he related. "Some of them didn't have clothes on. I saw others run down the stairway and out into the street. Many of those were unclothed also."
City Detective H. R. BLANCHARD shuddered over the scene of a man leaping from the second floor to land on an awning and pitch out onto the sidewalk. "He was burned and crushed," BLANCHARD said.
The building housing the hotel, one of the oldest here, had many wooden partitions, accoounting for the fact that it burned so quickly, said H. L. MATTHEWS, deputy fire marshal.
Cause of the blaze had not been determined.
The hotel, located on the second and third floors of the three-story building, was used mostly by transients but a number of regular tenants also were registered there. Some were old men, some were cripples.
Few of the dead men had been identified.
Some of the men died in leaps from windows, others burned to death as they choked the fire escape trying to get out. Firemen said they found bodies stacked around the fire escape and windows. Some of the lodgers were crippled some on crutches and others with arms and legs missing.
It required two hours for the fire department, using all available men, to extinguish the blaze. Soldiers and sailors assisting firemen in holding back the crowd and removing bodies from the building.
Justice of the Peace E. C. RAGAN directed the efforts to identify the bodies. No effort was made at the scene of the fire but all bodies were taken to the city morgue after the justice had tagged each.
The entire night shift of the fire department fought the flames, aided by 50 auxiliary firemen. Fifty auxiliary police officers and the Harris County emergency corps, military police and naval shore patrol officers assisted the firemen in controlling the crowd and searching for bodies.
The first alarm was sounded at 12:45 a. m. and a general alarm went out ten minutes later.
Four dozen pints of blood plasma were quickly obtained from the Southern Pacific hospital to add to the available supply of two dozen pints at the city hospital.
The Windsor Hotel, adjoining the Gulf, had about 40 tenants but none was injured. The Windsor was undamaged except for water.
City Manager JOHN N. EDY requested emergency measures designed to prevent another such disaster. He called on RICHARDSON to prepare recommendations for submission to the city council immediately and told City Attorney LEWIS CUTRER to investigate the possibility of establishing a fire code which the city attorney said the city does not have at this time.
The hotel resister showed 133 men were listed as lodgers last night.
From a hospital bed ANTON WITOSKI, 69, his right arm missing, described the outbreak of the fire. "I heard someone shout 'fire.' I saw fire coming form the direction of the stairway and lobby and ran to the fire escape to make my escape."
C. G. SMITH, 45, who was sleeping on the second floor, said his first warning came when timbers began falling on him.
"I looked up and saw the fire coming through the ceiling," he related from a hospital bed. "My room was near the stairway. I rushed down the stairway onto the street. Then, realizing I had left my draft registration card, social security card and birth certificate under my bed I went back up the stairs and got them returned."
SMITH was burned badly in dashing back into the flaming structure.
TED FELDS, director of the Harris County emergency corps, was knocked to the pavement when a man leaped from the hotel and landed on him.
"The fire escape was jammed with men trying to get out of the hotel," FELDS said. "Lodgers came swarming out the windows and onto the fire escape. Some of the men, when they saw it was blocked, just started jumping to the pavement. There were at least ten or 15 men on the pavement stretched out. We started moving the people off the pavement. We wrapped sheets around them and put them in ambulances.
Police Chief PERCY HEARD said the hotel had 87 rooms, 87 beds and 40 cots. It was filled when the fire broke out, he said.

Houston, Tex., Sept. 7 AP - Nearly half of the 45 persons killed in the fire which gutted the three-story Gulf Hotel buildilng, early Tuesday morning have been identified.
Victimes who have been identified are:
CLYDE PETER SPRUELL, 42, identified by papers on person.
J. S. HEBERT, identified by papers.
L. D. MUNCASTER.
ROY MARTIN.
ROBERT S. DIXON.
JOHN M. HEATH, identified by social security card and letter on his person.
M. G. MORRELL.
FRANK MIKE BLINSKY, identified by papers.
J. P. MURPHY, identified by papers, and by the hotel clerk.
WALTER MAINS, Houston Post street salesman.
FRANK FLETCHER HUSK, identified by papers on body and social secutity card.
JAMES M. LEWIS, blind paper vendor, identified by relatives.
JOHN GALLILEE, 57, identified by health card.
A. L. INMAN, a vendor.
E. H. BLACK, identified by papers and by the room clerk.
JOHN COSTELLO, whose social security card revealed his identity.
H. T. LEONARD, identified by papers.
ELMER BOYCE BEARD, identified by papers.
Those tentatively identified were:
MR. WOODHOUSE, laundry marks WID on his clothing.
MR. LOPEZ, whose clothing bore laundry marks of LFFE.
MR. CARVIS.
MR. JAEHNE.
MR. PRICE, whose clothing bore the laundry mark TP-A-2
And a BOB LOONEY.

The Galveston Daily News Texas 1943-09-08
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!