MILLARD HOTEL, OMAHA

Omaha's Millard Hotel was the scene of a deadly fire on the night of Feb. 8, 1933 that claimed the lives of seven firefighters.

"About 11 p.m., parts of the roof and upper floors collapsed, possibly due to an explosion in the hotel’s paint shop, and the outer north wall blew outward," the Omaha World Herald said in a 2018 recollection.

"Firemen on ladders and in the alley were crushed by a searing hot blast of bricks and debris," the newspaper said.

The United Press reported: "Captain George Cogan, brother of Fire Chief Patrick Cogan, was rescued after he had lain pinned under a girder for six hours."

The hotel was built in the 19th Century.

REFORM SCHOOL, ARKANSAS

Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus spoke in anger after fire claimed 21 lives at a state reform school on March 5, 1959.

"There's absolutely no reason for this to happen the way it did except because of negligence on the part of someone," Faubus fumed.

Mesh covered windows at the Arkansas Negro Boys Industrial School in Wrightsville. The school had no fire alarm system, no telephone - and no adult supervision at nighttime. The inmates lived in squalor.

Bodies of 12 of the victims "were heaped below a window they couldn't open," the United Press reported. "Nine other boys were sprawled in ashes that once was a U-shaped brick veneer dormitory building."

As appalling a sight as it was, there's reason to believe Faubus was trying to shift blame as he had visited the school before the fire.

A 1956 report by sociologist Gordon Morgan documented the school's problems, according the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

Morgan said:  “Many boys go for days with only rags for clothes. More than half of them wear neither socks nor underwear during [the winter] of 1955–56….[It is] not uncommon to see youths going for weeks without bathing or changing clothes.”

“All buildings…are in need of extensive repairs, particularly the boys’ living quarters,” Morgan said.

CHURCH BLAST, SOUTH DAKOTA

A propane explosion ripped though Saint Mary's Catholic Church in Marion, South Dakota, just before Sunday mass April 10, 1949, killing six people and injuring about 50 others. 

The Daily Republic of Mitchell, South Dakota, reported: "The blast sent the floor ceiling-ward, pushed out the thick tile and brick walls and let the heavy roof tumble to the floor."

Authorities attributed the blast to "a gas leak in an almost new propane gas furnace and an arcing spark from an electrical connection," the newspaper said.

A parish member driving to the church said: "I saw a big puff of what looked like steam. The roof seemed to lift a little. Then when I looked again it wasn't there."

HOTELS, PALM BEACH

1925

Palm Beach, Fla., March 18 (Associated Press) - Fire which for a time threatened to wipe out an entire section of this famous winter pleasure resort, was brought under control Wednesday night after two big hotels, the Breakers and Palm Beach, had been reduced to piles of glowing ashes. 

COUNTY JAIL, NEW HAVEN

On April 13, 1910, a fire that started in the shops of the county jail in New Haven, Connecticut, killed six firefighters.

Many others - firefighters and at least one civilian - were burned or injured.

On the 100th Anniversary of the fire, the New Haven Register said the doomed firefighters were trapped by metal doors and barred windows.

A contemporary report in the Portsmouth Herald, a New Hampshire newspaper, described the jail shops as "wooden structure very old and rambling in design" and said flames "engulfed several buildings almost before the fire apparatus arrived."

GRAY BUILDING, LOS ANGELES

On Nov. 6, 1939, a spectacular fire at the five-story Gray Building in Los Angeles claimed the lives of two city firefighters. Joseph Kacl of Truck Company 3 died when a floor collapsed, and on Dec. 11 John C. Hough of Engine Company 3 succumbed to injuries sustained while attempting to rescue Kacl.

NEWHALL HOTEL, MILWAUKEE

Milwaukee's Newhall Hotel, a once elegant lodging that fell into disrepair, burst into flames on Jan. 10, 1883, claiming about 70 lives.

The hotel, also called Newhall House, had been the site of lesser fires before its incineration, and firefighters considered it a fire trap.

The final blaze was discovered at about 4 a.m. as flames mushroomed up its open elevator shaft, trapping residents in their rooms and hallways. People in windows jumped or collapsed into the flames. Others suffocated.

A contemporary account published in the Fort Wayne Daily Sentinel, an Indiana newspaper, said that "exit by way of the roof was cut off by the fire and the two stand pipes with fire ladders were not available for the same reason."

The newspaper hailed firefighters for "a superhuman effort." In one rescue, "waiter girls were brought safely across frail ladders stretched over the alley from the sixth story of the hotel to the roof of the adjoining bank building," it said.

The traveling circus performer Tom Thumb and his wife were rescued by ladder, according to one account, in the arms of a single firefighter. Another account said a police officer carried Mrs. Thumb while Tom Thumb descended on his own.

A Jan. 23 inquest found the hotel owners guilty of culpable negligence for lacking adequate exterior fire escapes and failing to employ an adequate number of night watchmen, according to an 1883 report entitled Burning of the Newhall House.

The watchman and hotel clerk on duty "obeying previous instructions of the proprietors, lost valuable time in useless attempts to extinguish the fire and to arouse the inmate,'' the inquest said.

They also lost time hailing the Milwaukee Fire Department, which received  a telephone alarm from the night clerk at 4:05 a.m. followed by a signal from a street alarm box - Box 15 - at 4:08 a.m. and a general alarm from the same street box at 4:15 a.m.

HOSPITAL FIRE, ILLINOIS

On April 4, 1949, flames roared through the halls of the old St. Anthony's Hospital in Effingham, Illinois, killing 74 people.

There were many acts of heroism on the part of the hospital staff.

Nurse Fern Riley, 22, was on duty in the hospital nursery. "My babies! I've got to stay with my babies!" she shouted. Fern died along with 12 newborns.

According to Wikipedia:

``The 100-bed hospital was constructed mainly out of wood and brick. Parts of the building dated back to 1876. By 1949 the facility was completely outdated. 

``It contained open corridors and staircases. Many walls and ceilings were covered with oilcloth fabrics and combustible soundproof tiles.  The building lacked sprinklers as well as fire detection and alarm systems.''

The United Press reported: ``The flames leaped upward and turned the haven of  mercy into a blazing death trap before bedridden patients on the upper floors could make their escape.''

Fire Hero: Fern Riley's grave in March 2019

It was shortly before midnight when, according to the Journal of the National Fire Protection Association, a nun rang the hospital's telephone operator to report a fire in the basement.

The operator phoned hospital engineer Frank Ries at home and alerted the Effingham Fire Department.

Ries hurried to the hospital and trained a fire extinguisher on a laundry chute.  His assault failed and he died in the blaze.

Flames were roaring through the roof by the time the first Effingham firefighters arrived and they focused their efforts on rescue.

Twenty minutes later, crews finally got water on the blaze.

Of the dead, 20 were hospital staffers who gave their lives to save others.

The apparatus answering the alarm that night consisted of Effingham's meager force of three engines along with five rigs from neighboring fire departments.