Arizona republican., 1902-12-05
MANY VICTIMS
 OF A FIRE TRAP
Burning of a Hotel in Chicago
 Yesterday Morning
Fourteen Guests Were Stifled in Their Beds-A Fire Escape Was in Pro- cess of nstruction-Death Was Invited to Enter.

Chicago, December 4.-Fourteen men met death by suffocation this morning in a fire which occurred at six o'clock at the Lincoln hotel, 1T6 Madison street Thirteen of those who lost their lives were stined while lying in the beds. One victim was taken from the build ing before life was extinct, but died in the ambulance on the way to the near est hospital.
 Coroner Traeger after inspecting the
 building united with Fire Chief Mus ham in declaring that the building was veritable fire trap and never should have been used for a hotel. Chief Mus ham declared that there were such
 wide cracks in the floors that the smoke poured through the building in clouds rendering escape extremely difIi- cult for those on the upper floors.
 There was no fire escape on the front of the building, although one is 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 stairway had been cut off. The dead are:
 l. O. YOCUM, fire insurance agent, prominent in Davenport, Iowa.
 SAM YOCUM. son of. l. o. Yocum,
 Davenport. Ia.
 A. B. COON. lawyer. Marcngo. III.
 F. l.. EWING. mail clerk. Marietta. O.
 B. F. BOSWELL, Chicago. T. V. sLOCUM. machine dealer.
 Wauconda. III.
 H. K. WOODS. Lebanon, Ind. ED TONLY, printer. Milwaukee. CnpEX x-aa rS old, railway postal clerk, Bucyrus. O.
 WARD LOWE. railway postal clerk, Scchlerville, Wis.
 NJ M HARDY, travelling salesman, Janesville, Wis.
 c. P. CONAN. collector on Wabash railroad, St Louis.
 GEORGE B. GRAVES. compositor, Chicago.
 Unidentified man. five feet eight inches, 165 pounds, forty-five years old. thin brown hair and mOustache. The hotel was four stories in height and contained an unusual number of rooms for a hotel of it's size. After the fire Chief Musham of the fire de- partmcnt declared that they were the smallest rooms he ever saw in any building. Had there been fewer parti- tions, he declared, the chances of life
 for those sleeping on the upper floors
 of the hotel would have been great | ly increased.
 l.. A. Smith, proprietor of the hotel
 declared there were, as near as could
 be judged without his books, about i25 people in the hotel. It was. in fact filled to it's utmost capacity, and many applicants for rooms were turned away
 last night with the statement that they
 could not be accommodated. Night Clerk F. C. Weber discovered ! tho smoke pouring through the halls shortly before six o'clock and did his i best to alarm the guests, but the smoke
 was SO dense and increased in volume
 so rapidly that he was unable to arouse | only a small number, and was then compelled to grope his way to the street
 to avoid suffocation.
 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 sidewalk below and escaped without serious injury. A number of
 men were turned back by the smoke
 in the railways which prevented them | from finding the stairs, swung down
 on ropes placed in the front of the | building by wOrkmen who were erect 1 ing the fire escape.
 1 The firemen, who arrived with great
 promptness, saved many lives by carry | ing people down the ladders from the windows. The smoke on the inside of
 the building was so thick and so pun gent that the firemen were unable to
 do more than take the people from | the windows. Those who were not able
 to reach the windows in a few minutes
 after the fire broke out were suffoca ted. l The fire in itself amounted to very | little. A portion of the third and
 fourth floors were burned and the blaze
 was eXtinguished within forty minutes after the fire alarm. As soon as the
 smoke permitted the firemen to dive in-
 side the building a careful search was made of all the rooms with the result
 that thirteen men were found to have 1 been stified before they had been able | to leave their beds. All the dead had
 rooms on the third and fourth floors. | The building some time ago was
 condemned by the city building inspec- l tor as unsafe for hotel purposes and | the owners three weeks ago were ord | cred to place a stairway in the rear l and also build fire escape on the front | of the building. Beyond the prelimin-
 ary work for the fire escape nothing
 had been alone, however | -----O-~~--