The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-02
FATAL FIRE AT ROCKAWAY
THREE LIVES LOST EARLY SUN-
 DAY MORNING.
Nine Frame Hotels, the Casino aud the Seaside Avenue Museum Wiped Out Loss Estimated at S12O, O,0OO-Other Buildings Dnmagcd-The Dead and IDjured-Good Work by Police.

New York, June Max Kaston,
 thirty-two years old, and Mrs. Lydia
 McKroW, the same age, lost their lives
 in fire early to-day which swept
 away many buildings at Rockaway
 Beach. Thomas s. McKrow and his
 fve-year-od son Frank Marian Han
 son. twenty eight, and Morris Kasten,
 seventy-one, were injured and taken to a hospital In Long Island City. Sev- eral hours later the McKrow boy died and the father was reported to be dy ing.
 The fire started in the frame dwelling occupied by the Kastons. In a short time it spread to an unoccupied brick building and then in succession leveled the following structures; The Collon- ade hotel, the Casino, Walters hotel, Burns hotel, the Annex hotel, one-etory frame house, unocccupied, the Mousette hotel, Kasten's hotel, Peterson's hotel, Sagamore hotel, and the Seaside Ave nue museum.
 Other structures damaged were: Har- ry Genette's store, Herr Brothers tsore the Morrison statbles and Brennans ho- tel.
 The buildings for the most part were of the usual frame type such as are seen at seaside resorts and the loss is estimated at about $120,000
 After the fire had been conquered the body of a man was found burned to a crisp in one of the buildings, He is supposed to have been a candy maker.
 A number of persons received slight burns before they were about to escape from the flames The list includes Louise Cooper, Joseph Fletcher, Joseph and Edward Peck, Mrs. Bainbridge, Joseph Ward and J. Doddd, a Boston salesman.
 That the death list and the list of
 he injured was not many times greater was. that the holidays, Saturday and Sunday, coming together, made it nec- sssary to assign fifty bicycle police- nen to extra duty. The men were all asleep in the station two blocks from he fire when the alarm was turned in. When the alarm sounded the sergeant turned out all the men in the house. The policemen leaped on their wheels md were soon at the fire. They went trough the hotels, bursting in doors ind dragging the suddenly awakened inmates out without waiting for them o dress.
 The fire appears to have started in | he kitchen of Kastens hotel, probably | rom the explosion of a gasoline stove, | IT from a pot of candy boiling over. | The fire leaves but little of the seaside l portion of Rockaway Beach, all the res aurants, carousels and other public | ,laces being wiped out. Most of them | will be built almost immediately. The l carried amounted to about ne- fifth of the loss.
 MT. McKrow was able to tell tonight, espite his probably fatal injuries, of he struggle he had in trying to save is wife, who was burned to death, and is little son, who died later. Mrs. Me Irow. after the family were awakened, alled to her husband to save the sleep lg babe He took 1t out of it's cot and hrew it from the window to a man be- ,w in the street. Before he could turn ack into the room to rescue his wife he apartment was swirling in flame. Ie could not get to her and soon had , leap from the window himself His oy died at the hospitatl in a cot next , the one in which lay the father.
 What is supposed to be the body of [rs. McKrow were dug out of the ruins lany hours after the fire had ceased , hlrn. Another body found is thought l , be that of Max Kasten.