The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-09-17
CLIFF House
CONE AGAIN
SAN FRANCIsCo's FAMOUS BEACH
RESORT BURNED DOWN A SEC
OND TIME

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept S.-The Elk
aminer says:
The Cliff House is gone!
That far-famed hostelry-San Fran
cisco's boast-the worlds acclaim-is
leveled to the ground. It's tower and
it's turrets, it's open balconies and its
secluded apartments, with all their
wild romance and all their historical
significance, are now a heap of black
ened ruins.
In less than two hours of yesterday
Afternoon the glinting white walls that
for more than eleven years had de-
family challenged the angry ocean and
the furious tempest, were caught up
by fire and devoured to the last little
splinter.
1t was just past four o'clock when
it was discovered that the Cliff House
was in flames. James M. wilkins, who
had managed the hotel for many years,
and who had been the host of the old
Cliff House that was burned on Christ.
mas eve of 1894, was standing on the
south balcony of the main floor with
Waterman Owen Mulvaney. They
were looking down along the far
stretch of beach, dotted here and there
with lounging idlers and romping
merry-makers.
Suddenly, a puff of smoke came up
through a small square hole that elec-
tricians had cut in the flooring of the
balcony.
"The hotel is afire!" shouted Will
kins. Turn in the alarm!"
Telephone to John TAFT" cried
Mulvaney
Mulvaney rushed to the fire alarm
box and Wilkins ran to the north side
of the hotel, where the telephone was
located.
Up to that moment, all that wilkins
had seen was that little puff of smoke
issuing through the hole in the veran-
da. But the fire, starting as it did on
the bottommost floor of the hotel had
spread with frightful rapidity. And
While wilkins was yet Juggling at the
telephone, the whole north wall of the
building came crashing in, and Will
kins was enveloped in smoke and
flames.
Picture Jim" Wilkins, the suave
courtly, affable host of years gone by
battling for his life amid the black
sitting air of those fire-swept halls
penned up there, single and alone, anC
seemingly fated for a terrible death in
the very place over which he had beer
lord and master for so long a time.
wilkins ran toward the nearest exit
as he thought. He struck a solid wall
Then he thought of widow near the
telephone booth. He reached the win
dow and was beaten back by the
flames. Turning, he fled into the bar
room. That too, was filled with smoke
wilkins was choking now. He held a
hand to his mouth and staggered out
into the main corridor. There the
smoke was denser and the heat great
err.
wilkins could go no farther He
nj &c one last plunge into rh} dark
ness, and fell to the floor unconscious
Just then Captain Kelley of Chem.
ical Engine NO. 8 led mis- men intr
the turning building Thsv :,uFht
their way inch by inch, and they came
at last to the unconscious form of Will
kins. Fireman Fred Klatzel took firm
hold of the helpless man and dragged
him out into the open air, where he
was revived
Beyond Wilkins and Mulvaney
there were only three persons in the
building when it began to burn. They
we're a Japanese, his wife and theiI
child. These three were working in
the laundry below stairs, and they es.
capped at the first cry of fire.
A moment after the daring rescue OF
Wilkins all of the fremen were driven
from the hotel by the flames, which
now enveloped the whole structure
There was not the least chance of saw.
ing the hotel from total destruction.