The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-12-05
FOURTEEN
 SUFFOCAIED Chicago Hotel a Veritable Fire Trap.
 --.% THIRTEEN sTss<-D IN BED .. >,,>>'<- Large .Aber Receive h. b $ Trying to Escape. Volumes of Smoke Drove Them from the Stairways-Firemen Un-
 able to Enter the Build
 ing for Fumes.

Qeatn by SunocauOn tnlS AorLihS HI fire which occurred at o'clock in the Lincoln Hotel, 176 Madison Street. Thir- teen of those who lost their lives were stified while lying in their beds. One was taken from the building before life was extinct but died in the ambulance on the way to the nearest hospital.
 Coroner Trager, after inspecting the building, united with Fire Chief Musham in declaring that the building was veri- table trap and never should have been used for hotel purposes. Chief Musham declared that there were such wide cracks in the floors that the smoke poured through the building in clouds, rendering escape extremely difticult for those on the upper floors.
 There was no fire escape on the front of the building although one was in pro- cess of construction. The scaffolding was up and from it dangled several ropes down which a number of people slid to the pavement, after all escape by the stair way had been cut off.
 List of the Dead.
 The dead: l. c. Yokum, fire insurance agent, prominent in Davenport, la.; Sam uel 7ocum, son of l. c. Yocum. Daven- port, Ia.; A. B. Coon, lawyer, Marengo Ill.,; F. L. Ewing, mail clerk, Marietta O.; B. '. Boswell, Chicago; T. V. Slocum machine dealer, Wauconda. H.; Ii. k' Woods, Lebanon, Ind; Edward Toner, printer Milwaukee; F. w. Corey, Z years of age, railway postal clerk, Bucyrus, o.; Ward Lowe, railway postal clerk, seen lerville, Wis; M. M. Hardy, traVellng salesman, Janesville, Wis; c. r. CoWan' collector on the Wabash Railroad, St. Louis; George B. Graves, compositor, Chi cago; unidentified man. five feet eight inches, 165 pounds, 45 years of age thin brown hair.
 The hotel was four stories in height and contained an unusual number of rooms for a hotel of it's size. Alter the fire, Chief Musham declared that they were the smallest rooms he had ever seen in any building. Had there been fewer partitions he declared. the chances of life for those sleeping on the upper floors of the hotel would have been greatly increased.
 F, A. Smith, proprietor of the hotel, declared that there were, as nearly as he could judge without his books, about 125 people in the hotel. It was, in fact, filled to its utmost capacity, and many applicants for rooms were turned away last night.
 Night Clerk F. c. Weber discovered the smoke pouring through the halls shortly before o'clock and did his best to alarm the guests, but the smoke was so dense and increased in volume so rapidly that he was unable to arouse only small number and was then compelled to grope his way to the street to avoid suffocation.
 Leaped from Windows.
 The guests came pouring down the one stairway of the building in all stages of undress and several leaped from the windows of the second story to the side walk below and escaped without serious injury A number of men, turned back by the smoke in railways which pre- vented them from finding the stairs, swung down on the ropes placed in the front of the building by the workmen who were erecting the fire escape. The firemen who arrived with great prompt itude saved many lives by carrying peo- pie down the ladders from the windows The smoke on the inside of the building was so thick and so pungent that the firemen were unable to do more than take the people from the windows. Those who were not able to reach tne windows in a few minutes after the fire broke out were suffocated. The fire In itself amount ed to very little. A portion of the third and second floors were burned and the blaze was extinguished within forty minutes The building was some time ago condemned by the City Building Inspector as unsafe for hotel purposes and the owners were three weeks ago ordered to place a stairway in the rear and also to build a fire escape on the front of the building Beyond the preliminary work for the fire escape nothing had been done, however.
 The list of injured includes; J. s. Ali son, Richland Center, Wis; Edward Davenport, Chicago; W. G. Thomas. Ce- dar Rapids, Ia; William M Snyder, Loom City, la; AASs. June Shepherd, Chca go; ; Robert c. Hamilton, Lebanon, Ind; Cliff Ward Battle Creek, Mich; Fred G. Baker, Nashville. Mich. Irwin Wester- land, Chicago; Olaf Oldorf. Chicago.