Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1858-03-11
Burning of the Pacific Hotel /


Burning of the Pacific Hotel
The morning. of the Goth February,
1858, is made painfully memorable in |
the history of this city, by the occur
renee of one of the most heart-rending
of mortal calamities. A thronged hotel
of wearied and trayeled-sore inmates
all of whom were at the time sunk in the
deepest slumbers Of night, at that date
took fire, and burned around and among
them with the swiftness of DOOM The
fearful total of the accruing horrors can
not yet be told, and probably months
will elapsc before the fate of the loved
ones whose forms are now too mared
10 be known if found, and the last in
scribed record of whose names has per-
ished, can be satisfactorily ascertained.
Scarcely less than eighty persons can
have retired to the rooms of the Pacific
hotel, when standing on Seventh and
Popular streets, on last Friday night
1t Is too certain that an unusually large
number of guests had that evening arri-
we'd on the Pacific train, who supped
and took rooms in this doomed hotel
At about 3 O'clock in the morning,
watchmen at Genre aud Seventh streets,
square southwark detected the fire
light of aburning building reflected from
the rear walls of the structure on Sixth
street, and in the rear Of the Pacific
house. Hurrying to the scene, they
found the rear of the hotel wrapped in
raging flames. The edifice was of three
stories, and eighty, feet font, with a
depth of forty or fifty feet on Poplar,
street. The rear walls were of wood
and had ignited with astonishing rapid
ity-since an officer had passed there
fifteen minutes before.
Aside from the cracking and roaring
of the fierce flames, the stiffness of tie
grave reigned in the hotel. The watch
men Numbered aud yelled at the entran.
ces till the answering bark of q dog in
the room of the proprietor, DR.. Daniel
w. Strader, started that gentleman
from sleep. A heavy roaring filed the
air, and the glare of fire came into the
room through the open door. With a
cry of alarm he sprang into the hal, and
rushed for the fire-plGg, but was repell-
eddy advancing flames that were sweep
ing with such fury as to render the res
cue of life his sole idea. Through his
efforts and those of the watchmen with
out, the dodgers walked to a conscious
ness of immediate destruction. DR..
Strader then ran to call his own family,
in safer portion of the house, and found
them still sleeping. Some of his ser
wants he was obliged to drag forth by
the hair. By this time any exit from
the house, by the main entrance, was
impossible 1t was on fire, and the
stairs leading to it passed over the drug
store below, the combustibles of which
were thus quickly united, and the ele-
ment ragged with ten-ioid fury. Only 4
small staircase and doorway, construct
ed for the use of ladies, led into the
street and the passage to this was soon
interrupted, and rendered impossible
bv deep barrier of fire. a few had
been in time TO follow the landlord into
the street, and some of them had been
severely burned. To the many dear
ones who remained within the burning
pile there was left no egress, save thro'
the second ane third story windows
And so swiftly had their horror grown,
that scarce a dozen personshad yet gath
cred to the rescue.
Ladders there were none, and the
trantically imploring victims at the win
dows, Were already writhiug with almost
intolerable heat. Others Suifocated in
their rooms, were at this very time as
the sequel too surely proves, actually
being broiled and roasted in their beds
Others still, stung from sleep by the
greedy flame, darted from their touches
through the windows, while still others,
With scarcely less haste, made, for the
most part, Intellectual efforts to descend
with safety. The dead and MANNED
were picked up and conveyed from the
scene-the still living, to the Sisters
hospital.