OCR Text |
Show LOUD ALARUM BELLS. During Last Night Two Philadelphia Hote'.s Go to Blazes. Narrow Escape of 350 GuestsJ Who Get Out Regardless of Toilets. Luckily No Fatal Accidents Occur, But a Pile of Property Goes Up in - Smoke. Hotel Fire In Philadelphia. Philadelphia, January 26. The five story brick building, N03. 715 to 719 Arch street, was discovered on fire at 1:35 o'clock this morning. - The flames were quickly communicated com-municated to 721 Arch street. The building in which the fire originated is one of the handsomest on Arch street. The upper floors are occupied by three firms of lithographer?. litho-grapher?. Each of these firms will softer a" total loss. The first floor was occupied by Monroe Bros. & Co., wholesale shoes. : The building 721 Arch street is occupied by May & Brother, straw and millinery goods. The firemen, finding their efforts to save the Morris building unavailing, directed their streams to the St. Cloud Hotel, which adjoins ad-joins immediately on the east. The quests in the hotel had all retired for the night, and were startled by s , THE FBAKTIO SHOUTS OF "lUtE," Which came from the fourth floor. - The cry of warning created a panic in the hostelry. Guests rushed from their rooms partially dressed into the corridors and down stairs to the office. The female guests were escorted es-corted safely to quarters in the neighbor-: hood, while gentlemen with gripsacks, and others lugging their trunks, looked after their own interests. There were many exciting ex-citing incidents and scenes attendant upon the retreat from the hotel, but no accidents are reported. At 1 :15 the front wall of the Morris building FELL WITH A CRASH Into the street. This was soon afterward followed by the fall of a side wall upon the warehouse occupied by May & Brother. The roof was crushed and the building shattered by the burning debris. A number of buildings build-ings on South Arch street were damaged by fire, and the contents suffered from water. The double building, 723 and 724 Arch Btreet, just west of the Morris building, was entirely en-tirely burned, and shortly after 2 o'clock it was evident that the St. Cloud Hotel was doomed, as great volumes of heavy smoke came pouring through the fifth floor front windows. During the early stages of the fire, - and before it had reached the hotel, policemen ran through the latter building to awaken the guests who had not previously been alarmed. Some of them were too sleepy to be aroused, and the officers offi-cers were obliged to break in a few of the doors to get the paople out. By 3 o'clock the cornice and a portion of the top story of the hotel fell into Arch street, SENDING UP MTEIADS OF CIKDEBS. At 3:45 the fire was under control. The St. Cloud Hotel was a five -story structure, with a frontage of eighty feet. It had accommodations accommo-dations for 350 guests, and last night was filled to two-thirds of its capacity. The proprietors pro-prietors say they value their furniture and effects at $50,009, which is fully covered by insurance. THE LOSDON TEMPEBANCE HOTEL Adjoins the St. Cloud on the east side, and also caught fire. The guests, who were mainly permanent boarders, were directed to leave it, and all of them succeeded in saving their personal property. The loss is now estimated at a half to three-quarters of a million. . . |