The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-08-19
Hotel HORROR.
Twenty People Lose Their Lives
at Denver.
The Boiler in the Gumry Hotel
Explodes,
Shattering the Building From
Top to Bottom.
RUINS TAKE FIRE.
Terrible Scenes Enacted, the
Wounded Burn to Death.
List Of the Killed, Injured and
Missing.
A DRUNKEN FIREMAN
Aged Only Seventeen PourS
Cold Water
Into the Boiler Which Canses
the Explosion.
Into the Boiler Which CanseS
the Explosion.

y
hotel, Nos. 1925 to 1873 Lawrence
street, was wrecked by terrific explo-
sion at 1910 a. M The rear end of the
building, a five story brick and stone
structure, went down with a crash.
The hotel was crowded with guests
and many of them must have been
killed, as well as the entire force of
hotel employees, who were sleeping in
that portion of the building at the
time. On both sides of Lawrence, from
Seventeenth to Eighteenth streets, and
on Laramie directly back of the Gumry
the plate glass windows of the bust
ness houses We're blown in, and a num-
Der of pedestrians were in jured by fall
ing glass. The fronts of many build
ings in the vicinity were badly
wrecked.
The hotel structure for 100 feet
along the alley, and extending for
seventy-five feet toward the front, is
merely a mass of debris. Brick and
plaster are piled in a heap twenty feet
high, and from this mass of Wreckage
can be heard the means of the injured
and dying. At 1895 five injured per-
sons had been taken out. They were
all inmates of the upper story, and
sank down with the floors, escaping
more fortunately than those below
who are still buried in the ruins.
The firemen are working like beav-
ers, digging into the debris, but are
making little progress. The remain
ing portion of the building, from
which the guests are being removed
by ladders as fast as possible, is ex-
pected to fall at any moment, and pre-
cautions to avert further loss OF life
add to the difficulty in reaching the
dead and injured. By some estimates
forty people were in the portion of
the hotel destroyed. nearly all of
whom must be dead. The cause of
the explosion is uncertain, but it is
supposed that the battery of boilers in
thu hotel basement must have ex-
ploded.
The sound of the explosion was
heard throughout the city, awakening
people in bed a mile from the scene.
A cloud of Dust was thrown a thOus-
and feet in the air. Minute atoms of
powdered brick and mortar are de-
scending like gentle snow. At 1880
the ruins are burning fiercely and the
firemen have been obliged to retreat
from the work of rescue. Every en-
gine in the city is pouring streams
into the mass, but the flames cannot
possibly be gotten under control be-
fore many of the injured have been
cremated. AS their chan ees of scape
lessen the cries of the imprisoned pc o.
pie are increasing, heart-rending
shriel1s arising from every portion of
the great mass of wreckage.
Electric light wires dangling from
broken poles in the alley added fresh
peril to the firemen. One horse was
killed by coming in contact with q
live wire. Two injured women had
almost been extricated from the ruins,
when the flames approached so close
that the rescuers had to abandon
them for their own safety. Both
voices have now been silenced, fire
completing the work commenced by
the explosion. The bodies of three
women are also to be seen in the back
part of the building, but cannot be
reached.
Out of forty or more people who were
certainly in the hotel when th'
explosion occurred, a score were go
out safely, three were rescued with more
or less serious injuries, and the other
are unquestionably lying dead beneath
the indescribable mass of bricks ant
shattered beams and twisted iron at th'
rear of the ruined building. The fire
men are laboring at the work of excava
tion, but it will be many hours. and per
haps days, before the uncertain horror
of that heap of destruction can be full.
told.
The death list will include the owne
of the hotel, Peter Gumry; the manager
Robert C. Greiner, and his wife, VIII
acted as day clerk. and their child
They are known to have been in the rea
of the building and could not possibl.
have escaped.
Before fire added to the horrors of tn
explosion, the fremen were appealed t
piteOusly by men and women and babe
whose lives were being crushed out il
the ruins. Then the fire broke out an
that ended it. Joe Munal of Carlo, Ills
was rescued at 2:3O o'clock after a
hours work, and it is certain that n
more Of the victims can be alive.
A. E Irwin, the night clerk, says ther
were between fifty and fifty five peopl
registered and sixteen were occupyip
back rooms. where it was more difficul
TO escape, but it is known that sewers
who were in the back portion of tn
building managed to escape in som
manReE