Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1890-10-23
TEHRiBLE HOLOCAUST,


The Burning of the Leland Hotel at
| Syracuse, n. Y. Results i'm Awful
Loss of Life by Burning and Otherwise
| -Fuily Twenty-Five, and Perhaps n
| Greater Number will Comprise the
Death Notwithstanding Scenes at the
| fare.
SYRACUSE. n. Y, Oct. 16.-What
| proved to be the most disastrous fire
that has visited Syracuse for many
| years was discovered in the Leland
Hotel at half-past twelve o'clock this
/ morning 1t is now two o'clock and
! the fire is still burning fercely, al
though the entire fire department, con-
| sisting of nine engines, are working
/ hard to save further loss of life and
| limb.
An eyewitness of the fire says he is
| positive at least twenty-five persons
lost their lives and many more have
been more or less injured.
One woman was being lowered from a
window by the aid of rope. She had
| reached point opposite the third story,
when the rope became ignited from u
burning sill, parted, and the woman
fell to the pavement, her brains being
dashed out and her body fattened into
shapeless mass.
So great is the confusion and the ex-
| element that the identity of those
killed and injured is wholly unknown.
Unuertakers' ambulances and other
vehicles are flying in all directions and
the streets in the neighborhood of the
Inflated hotel are thronged with excited
| crowds of people.
Many people, crazed with fear, lost
their lives by jumping from windows.
| One man says he saw six people jump
from different windows on the Fayette
street side of the building within a
space of four minutes, and the sight
sickened him with it's horror and he
was compelled to leave the spot.
The building was provided with both
iron fire escapes on the outside and
ropes on the inside, which were the
| means of saving many lives.
Burnet Forbes, stock broker of
this city, escaped into the street al
most entirely naked. He was slightly
injured about the hands.
One woman was found with a nursing
babe in her arms, crouched in stair
way, where she had been overcome by
| the smoke. She was removed by the
fremen, but has not yet regained con-
seriousness, and it is impossible to tell
what her name is or what her expert
ence was.
The fire is said to have started in the
kitchen.
The building will be total loss. 1t
was built two years ago at a cost of
$50, 900. 1t is six stories high and con-
tanned 400 rooms. 1t is, impossible to
| estimate how many guests were in the
hotel at the time the fire broke out
| The total loss will not fall short of a
half million, partly covered by iusur-
ance.
Among those injured is Cora, Tanner,
the actress, who was severely burned
| about the head and feet. She was play
ing an engagement at the Grand Opera
house and had room in the hotel.
Every physician in Syracuse is on
the ground. Most of those killed were
or the fourth and fifth floors.
Vague rumors are afiOat that the list
of the killed will number fifty persons,
but the fact can not be su bStantiated,
and it is believed the number will be
less than twenty-five, the first estimate,
Guard lines stretched across the
streets are inadequate to keep back
the surging crowsd of people that are
packed III the streets leading to the ho-
tel. and police are stationed all around
tho building.
The scenes ana inciden is connected
with the rescue of inmates are heart
rending in the extreme. The cries of
women standing in upper windows and
eff the excited crowd below were deaf
eniAg, and added to this the constant
roar of many fire engines created. a.
babel Of confusion.
At 1:13 a. m. man and woman were
seen locked in each others arms in a
window on the fifth floor at the north
east corner of the building. Below
them was perfect sea of flame. No
posi- bility OF escape except by the win
dow was open to them, and that
seemed inevitable death. No assist
ance could reach them. The woman.
seemed TO be anxious to. jump,
but her husband earnestly entreated
her to desist. The crowd below waited
with bated breath. The woman made
one last effort to jump, was restrained
by her husband, and the cry. of the
crowd signaled the awful end that must
have befallen them as they fell back
ward into mass of flames.