The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-02-22
FROM AN INFERNO Of
FIRE INTO ICY
STREETS.
Desperate Leaps From Win
dows of a Blazing
Hotel.
RED HOT GRAVE FOR NINE
Limbs Of Many Who Leap Broken and Crushed
by Stones Of the Stree.---9alf Clad
and Barefooted in the
Snow.
By the Associated Press.)

Cedar Rapids. Ia. Feb. 2O.-Fire early
this morning destroyed the Clifton Hotel,
cremated nine of the guests and caused
injuries to twenty-six persons, who were
street from second and third story win
dows. After an all day search in the
debris, four bodies have been recovered.
1t is now believed that five more bodies
remain in the ruins of the hotel, which is
said to have been a fiimsy structure and
filed with delegates to the State Young
Mems Christian Association Convention,
and the district convention of the knights
of Pythias. The hotel register was de-
stroyed thus making it difficult to as
certain the number of missing persons.
Forty men have been working in the rub
bish all day and will continue to dig for
the remains of the burned persons all
night The loss is 100000.
The dead:
w. A. MOWERY, What Cheer, Ia.
E. C. YOUNG, Minneapolis.
Two unidentified men, bodies recov-
cred.
Five bodies still in debris.
Nearly all those injured were Iowa peo-
pie. While their injuries are severe in
many cases no one was fatally hurt.
The hotel, a three story brick veneer
structure. is said to have been veri-
table fire trap. The flames started in a
pile of rubbish in the basement, presum-
ably ignited by defective electric light
wires. The night clerk was on the third
floor when the cry of fire, raised by a
bell boy. startled him. He took up the
cry and in an instant the Railways were
choked with frightened guests A rush
was made for the stairways. 1t was then
that the crowd already collected in the
street heard heart rendering cries
of anguish and desperation, for the fire,
feeding ravenously on the tinder- like ma
terial of the lower floor. had completely
cut off escape. There followed a STAN
pede for the windows, the only means OF
exit. The street below was filled with
crowd scarcely less frantic than the
despairing ones in the fast burning build
inw.
The victims were literally driven by
the flames to jump. Nearly every one
of them fingered to the last moment
urged by the people below to wait as long
as possible in the hope of assistance.
Then a cry would tell that the fire had
reached some one or the smoke had
made it impossible to breathe, and one
after another jumped to The street, and
some. more fortunate, to the roofs of
buildings adjoining. In short space of
time the street was filled with men and
women bruised, battered, broken limbed
and half crazed All were in their night
garments. In an hour St. Luke's Hos
ptal contained fifteen injured while
capped with comparatively slight hurts
= were being cared for in buildings near
the scene of the tragedy Some who
jumped owe their lives to the fact that
their falls were broken by telegraph
wires, which interposed in their down
ward fight.
A number Of the guests who were able
to converse calmly following their es-
capes declared that they stumbled over
PROSTATE bodies as they rushed to the
windows. The flames literally were
chasing them and the smoke made il
almost impossible to breathe
Those who were first to escape. where
they were not too severely injured stood
for sometime barefooted in the snow
chained to the spot and rendered un.
conscious of the cold by the horror Of
the scene Many of them had to be lee
away.