The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-02-01
BURNED TO DEATH
Five Persons Lose Their Lives
in Kansas City Fire.
Blaze Started by an Explosion
of Natural Gas.
FIVE ARE INJURED.
Building Destroyed a Three
Story RoOming House.
Persons in Upper Story Cut Off
From Escape.
FIVE ARE INJURED.

Kansas City, Mo-, Feb. 1.-fVe
persons were burned to death and nVe
others were injured in fire In
three story rooming house at 1116
Wyandotte street near the business
center this morning.
The dead:
MRS. JENNIE BERT, aged 90,
Harrisonville, Mo-, waitress.
ress
NINA GRAVES, aged IS, waitress.
PETER ROONEY, aged "a, COOK.
CHARLES JOHNSON, aged %,
cook
The injured received slight burns
and cuts and none is in a dangerous
condition. All of the dead, except
Mrs. Bert, lived in Kansas City.
The injured were taken to the
Emergency hospital. A partial list
follows:
George Nagaznnu. japanese kitchen
helper.
Claude Polver, aged 20. bell boy,
Kansas City club.
M. W. Stoner, aged 10, student at
business college.
owen Connose, kitchen man.
John Geanenni, second cook, Sex
ton hotel
The fire started from an explosion
of natural gas in the basement at
O'Clock this morning. The flames and
OCA4SS spread
out the building and before an alarm
could be given all means of escape by
the ordinary exits had been shut off.
The five persons who lost their lives
were asleep on the third floor and all
save Mrs. Bert were burned to death in
their rooms. Evidently they had been
Suffocated and none apparently had
even made an attempt to escape. Before
the f1remen arrived the building was
mass of flames and the rooms on the
upper floors could not be entered. Mabel
Porter and Nina Graves two of the
dead, occupied a room together. The
injured slept on the lower floors and in
the basement. Most of these escaped
without aid, fighting their way through
the flames and smoke The fremen
burning building
Mrs. Bert lost her life in trying to
arouse the inmates. The dense smoke
pouring up the stairway soon filled
the Railways and entered the rooms.
Mrs. Bert's room, on the third floor
was close to the landing and it was
one of the first to be entered by the
smoke. She was awakened and hurry
ing down the hallway on that floor,
attempted to awaken the sleeping
roomers. The smoke soon drove her
to the second floor where she tried to
repeat her effort at giving an alarm.
The smoke and flames, however, now
crowded her SO closely that she was
compelled to desist and sought escape
by the stairway. At the top of the
second floor landing she stumbled
and falling headlong down the stair
way landed in the thickest of the
flames. At the bottom her charred
remains were later found by the fire.
men. The body was almost unrecog-
nizable.
There were % persons in the build
ing when the fire broke out. Most of
the roomers worked at night as wait
ers and cooks at nearby hotels and
restaurants. Most of them had only
retired a short time previous and they
were deep in sleep. This fact doubt
less accounts for the inability of Mrs.
Bert to waken them. The bodies of
the four other victims were found lin
their beds. Each had been terribly
burned and the limbs dropped from
one of them as the remains were later
carried from the house.
The alarm of fire was turned In by
Colonel Willis Wood, capitalist.
formerly of st. Joseph, No. The
building was one of the oldest in the
city and was situated on what in
Kansas City's early days was known
as Quality hill" The building was
a veritable fire trap and when the
iremen arrived it was then already
doomed. 1t was not supplied with
fire escapes and the only means of es-
cape was by way of the stairway I'M
through which the flames and smoke
poured.