Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1899-03-23

med with people from curb line to house
line, and from curb to curb with st. Pat
rick'S Day paraders. To this fact is due,
perhaps, some of the loss of life and
good deal of the serious injury to person,
for the crowd interfered with the police
and the firemen; but so suddenly did the
fire start, and so quickly did it sweep
through the big hotel from floor to floor,
from street to roof, from side to side II
there had been no crowd there and moth
ing to hamper the work of the officials,
there would still have been many acci-
dents and some fatalities. With such
awful rapidity did the fire spread once 1t
started, that people no higher up III the
building than the floor above the street
had to fly for their lives. Only by search
of the ruins will the extent of the DIS
aster be known, and so complete was the
wreck wrought by the fire that this Will
be a long and tedious work.
The fire started, according to the best
information, in a dining room. 1t was
due, it is almost certain, to the careless
tossing of match into a lace curtain. Be
fore an alarm could be sent in to the ire
department the building was doomed. HAD
it been finder box the fire could not have
taken hold quicker and completed the
work of demolition in less time. Yet Ihe
building has been called fireproof 1t was
fitted, according to the building ana nle
officials, with all of the equipment loi
use in case of fire that the law requires
1t had sufficient fire escapes and the mans
were equipped with electric alarms anu
with colored globes that should nave
shown everybody how to reach the e.
capes. Yet they might almost as well hos
have been there, for of all the persons
rescued not more than half dozen "ei'
taken down by means Of the ire eSca,e'
while scores jumped or slid down mufoe!
Gus rope escapes, which burned lnel.
hands and compelled them to drop iii"H'
feet above the street.
Within two hours of the discovery u
the fire the hotel itself was total wren
and the walls had fallen out on every s!u.
except the eastern side, where adJoinno
buildings shored them up. IhoSe wv
hours were as full of thrilling lncluentD
as any that Fifth avenue ever WltneSSpgI,
Over 25OOO. and perhaps 10000, peop.
were jammed together III the Sin"1 and
space that they could be Janilea il' non
they saw women and children ana ,ntd
leaping from the windows of the n intor
They saw fremen climbing up tne :s Vr,
walls with scaling ladders and Drilling Lr;ne
down panic-stricken and often StLts eth,
women. They saw rescues Amos s.onpn
out number, and they cheered the .h nl' mob
as they worked. For time 'h IL, and
svamned the police and surged U" .;ng 10
forth through the streets, now ru3h'D now
see this unfortunate falling 10 peI life nets
to witness another caaght in the ;. li ip bor,
by the firemen, and again to look Kan IN rail,
ror upon another impaled on lhe ~ ,.G dashed
ings that surrounded the h n. o nr u.s.
to death on the huge iron now" w. almost
= This mob was as panic stricken TSaT scream a.
as the people in the hotel. ,1 IhrS leap
ed as unfortunate after unf Saars now and
ed out; they mingled their ch ef fbe people
AGAIN with the cries for ala ol ~ -
VINO be aiI loss se' on the hotel is nins build
ohon ut 81 GOO 600 Several adJp hr but the
1 1os o NTH these is Comparatively a s are
the papers and books Oh d sn0 N
lieyed to have been SAVE