The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1894-10-31
A HOTEL HORROR.
Sixteen People Burned to Death
at Seattle, Wash.
Kerosene Lamp and Started While
the Inmates We're Asleep Many
Thrilling Escapes From
the Death Trap.

SEATTLE, Wash, Oct. 29.-The people
of this city were Mortified Saturday by
hotel holocaust, which overshadows
in it's fatalities the great fire OF 1889,
when the greater portion OF the city
was laid in ashes. In the destruction
of the West Street hotel by fire at least
sixteen inmates lost their lives amid
all the agonies and horrors of crema-
tion under such surroundings. The
victims identified so far by shreds OF
unburned clothing are as follows:
f. Boltman, Angus Mcdonald, c. Will
son Anderson, Mrs. J. Huffman and
two daughters, Andrew Otteson, Mrs.
Andrew 0tteson.
The building was two-story struc-
ture of corrugated iron, occupying. an
entire square on the water front, 1t
was a fire trap with maze of passages
which would confuse any person in the
absence of light, The impossibility of
escape from such death-pen when
flames were licking up everything
within reach and suffocating smoke
filed the heated air was apparent to
the fremen and Mortified spectators on
the street below.
When the department responded to
the alarm the building was mass of
flames. The news quickly spread that
there were half hundred guests in
the blazing trap, twenty of whom were
transients. 1t was half an hour after
midnight when the fire apparatus came
rushing to the scene of death, but the
Sre broke out so suddenly and with
such ferocity did the flames spread to
every part of the structure that terri
BILE panic prevailed among the inmates.
Three of those who escaped were in
jured by jumping, one man breaking a
leg in his fall. A frantic mother threw
her baby of one year into the street,
where policeman caught it without
harm. w. G. R. News dropped twenty
feet to the ground and picked himself
up unhurt Joseph A. May tied the
sheets and used them as rope to let
himself down in safety. c. B. Glass
waited at the window of his room I'M
til his hair was burned off. Then he
jumped, his head striking the ground.
The proprietor of the hotel, II. F.
Butler, was in bed when the flames
burst into view from the street and had
narrow escape from death. His son,
s. F. Butler, who was night clerk, says
the fire originated from the explosion
ofa kerosene lamp in the kitchen.
Some of the dead were suffocated or
burned to death in their beds, parts of
their charred bodies being found in
that way. Escape by the narrow stair
ways was cut off to those who got that
far and all rushed to the only avenue
of Osafety, the windows overlooking
the street. The body of the first vic
tim was found in room with one leg
in his trousers and his shoes partly
laced.
Not person in the building escaped
with anything except the clothes they
had on them. After two hours hard
work the fremen had the flames under
control Only the gutted hull Of the
hotel was left. The woodwork of the
interior was almost entirely consumed,
but the corrugated iron walls were left
standing. AS soon as the work of
searching for the dead was considered
safe, thirteen bodies were quickly
found in the rooms and passages, the
postures and bed covering of many
slowing they had died in awful agony.