Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-02-24
10 LIVES LOST
In Park Ave. Hotel and FIST
Reg. Armory Fire.
Hotel "Fireproor" With Absolutely
No Means Of Escape. -,
Origin of Fires a Mystery-investisa.
ton to Be Made.

New York, Feb. 23.-Nineteen lives
were sacrificed in the blaze which first
destroyed the list Regiment armory
and then ruined the upper part of the
Park Avenue Hotel, early Saturday
morning. Lives were sacrificed, Chief
Croker and other officials say, because
the hotel structure, which was said to
be fireproof, was without the ordinary
methods of escape which the law de-
mands. There We're no fire escapes, no
fire hose, not even a bucket of water,
Chief Croker said.
or the cause Of the fire, there are
various conjectures. The proprietor de-
clares that 1t was the work Of an in
cendiary, his design being to rob the
rooms of the patrons. That many of
the rooms were looted there is no doubt
but there is little reason to believe that
cendiary. -if' .
Far from holding this view, the Off
Gals Of the fire department say the
fire originated in the hotel itself, and
that 1t was not caused by a burning
brand from the blazing fist Regiment
army. across the street, which might
have been waited by the strong wind
to the roof Of the hotel. AS proof Of
this. they point to the fact that the
blaze started at the bottom of the ele-
vator shaft.
Most searching will be the investiga-
ton to be made by the authorities.
Dist. Atty. jerome has already sub
poenaed the proprietor of the hotel to
appear before him; Coroner Golden
kranz will also institute an inquiry
AMI Fire Commissioner Sturgis will en-
deavor. to ascertain who is to blame.
All the patrons of the hotel assert
positively, and it is admitted, too, by
the management that although the fire
in the armory had been raging for an
hour and half. no warning had been
given that the hotel was in any danger.
Indeed, when some of the nervous wO-
men inquired of the proprietor if they
were in any peril, he assured them to
the contrary. saying the hotel was per-
fectly safe.
1T is fireproof," was the way he
spoke of it. There is much mystery as
to the origin of the fire which wrecked
the list Regiment armory. The general
supposition is, however, that a cigarette
carelessly thrown into some waste pa
per started the fire.
The list of the dead as a result of
the Park Avenue hotel fire numbers 10.
The dead:
Norman Acton, Alabama.
Col. Charles l.. Burdett, Hartford,
CT, colonel LIST Regiment of the Ma
tional Guard of that state.
Mrs. Ellen Foster, a Tombs prison
missionary.
Fred S. Hovey, Lyons. N. Y.
Thomas p. Horne, Denver.
John II. Iverson, Denver.
Charles Underwood O'Connell, New
York. died of injuries in a hospital.
Col. Alexander Piper, U. S. A. re-
tired, resident of hotel.
G. A. Robbins. lawyer, of Selma, Ala.
Miss Esther Schlessinger. Chicago.
Jacob Sahn, a lawyer, of Rochester,
N. Y
John f. Walker, Columbia, Tenn
Unknown man, body found on the
fifth floor, about IS years old, feet I
inches in height. 40 pounds. black hair
and mustache. Wore white-striped
trousers, gray underwear and silk jack
ct and gold ring.
Mrs. +. w. McGinnis. a permanent
guest; found suffocated opposite the
entrance of her room.
CASTOR A. Robbins permanent guest;
found suffocated in hallway.
Unknown woman. body found on the
sixth floor. wore five rings on the left
hand.
Two other unknown dead.
Mrs. Sarah Beach.
v. A. Leach of Rockland, Me-, who
slept on the fourth floor of the hotel,
Gays the reflection of the light of the
flames on his window. which opened in
to a courtyard, awakened him at BE
O'Clock, an hour and a half after the
fire was discovered.
He ran to the hall and met other
guests. who told him that as all other
means of escape had been cut off they
must jump from windows. Just then a
fireman called to them through the
smoke which filled the hall and told
them to follow him. He led them down
a stairway to the street.
Rev. FIR. william st. Elmo Smith,
chaplain OF the fire department, said
1t was a most surprising thing that
guests had been left sleeping in their
beds after the hotel fire had been dis
covered. He added:
With apparently no thought for
their own safety and disregard for that
of their guests, the hotel employees
stood taking in the magnificent spec
tacle of the fire across the street. The
fact that they advertised the hotel as
hreproof seemed to convince the hotel
men that they could calmly view the
conflagration of the much more dura-
bic armory with its heavy granite
walls and metal and slate roof. as it
crumbled before the flames, and have
no fear for their own building"