Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1902-12-16
DIE IN HOTEL FIRE.
FLAME AND SMOKE KILL FOUR.
TEEN IN CHICAGO.
Victims of Horror in the Hosiery
Mostly Farmers Attending the Live
Stock Many snffoeated Like
Rats ir Trap.

Fourteen men were suffocated in an
insignificant Chicago fire thar broke out
at $50 Thursday morning in the four
story Lincoln European Hotel, 176 Mad
ison street. There were 125 guests in
the hotel. The men were mostly farmers
visiting the live stock exposition, and, il
is said, if it had not been for the narrow
halls, the oyercrowded rooms and fail
IRE to alarm the yictism they would have
been able to escape from the fire trap.
Many of the bodies were found in the
beds in positions of slumber. Others
were found in the Railways lying face
downward in positions that mutely por-
trayed now they had vainly endeavored
TO save their lives. Some were half
clad and others wore nothing but night
clothing 1t was by means of articles
and letters in the pockets of What little
clothing some of the dead persons wore
that many identifcations were aaIe.
Most of the victims were snffocated as
they slept or as they struggled through
the narrow Railways in search OF an exit.
4 few were killed b. jumping from win
dows. Many othey guests were carried
out unconscious.
For half an nour after TIE fremen
found their WY into the building they
stumbled across insensible forms lying on
the floors and on the stairways. Although
screams and mo6ns from the upper floors
told the rescuers that men and women
were imprisoned there, the smoke was
impenetrable and the victims were allow
ed to stifie to death.
Tho V-icffyac xrara ou-ol~aDoI hxy Mind.
ing smoke that shut out the light in the
halls. Some of them could not find the
electric bulbs in their rooms, and jumped
from the side windows on to the roof of
a building which adjoins the hotel ON
the west. Most of the occupants manag,
ed to rush down the stairs, after picking
up portion of their clothing.
1t is reported that the fire was acct
dentally started. The hotel is being reno
waited, and it was charged that piles of
shavings were Uttered around some cf
the rooms. One of the guests said that
the blaze started from cigar thrown in
the hallway on the second floor.
The loss of life occurred among the
sleepers nearest the roof Here the smoke
found no vent and filled the rooms, suf-
locating many before they were awak-
ened.
Farmers Look for Friends.
The scene around the partly burned
building, after the terrible results had
become generally known throughout the
city, was pathetic in the extreme. The
hundreds of strangers. principally farm
ers from nearby States who were in
Chicago to take part in the live stock ex-
position at the stock yards, knew that
the Lincoln Hotel was largely occupied
by their friends and acquaintance, and
they hurried into Madison street and in
Quired anxiously as to whether sheir par
ticular friend, in some instances broth
er or near relative, had been saved
Each one to make the inquiry was di-
rected either to the county hospital or to
an undertaking establishment where the
bodies had been taken. AT the latter
place the white sheet was lifted time and
again to permit the facial features to be
scanned by the anxious ones.