Newhall House
The Newhall House in Milwaukee was one of the largest hotels in the United States and the city's first luxury hotel. It became famous after a fire disaster in 1883.
The construction
Newhall House was built around 1857 by Daniel Newhall and several other entrepreneurs and opened on August 26, 1857. It was on the corner of Michigan Street and Main Street (then Broadway), had six floors and about 300 rooms. At the time it opened, the hotel was considered the best hotel in the west. The total cost, including furniture, to build this establishment was $ 275,000. Newhall House was originally crowned by a wooden dome structure, but it was demolished to reduce the risk of fire after a devastating fire broke out in Chicago . Nevertheless, the house only narrowly escaped a fire disaster in 1863. Nine hotel rooms were devastated by a fire. In 1865 the hotel was owned by Daniel Wells Jr., SS Sherman and CD Nash. It was expanded in 1866 by taking over the top of an adjacent building on the corner of East Water and Michigan Streets and connecting it to the original hotel by a wooden bridge at the third floor level. The top three floors were also connected to this building in order to create additional escape routes in the event of a fire. After it was threatened with closure, the hotel was finally bought by SN Small, who had to take out large loans. He took over with it, and in 1873 the Newhall House Stock Company was founded, of which CD Nash was chaired. In 1874 further fire protection measures were taken; in the same year the elevator was installed. On January 9, 1880, flying sparks in a wooden ventilation shaft caught fire in several rooms of the hotel. They were not set up as hotel rooms again, but transformed into a kind of veranda.
In the few years the hotel has been in operation, at least nine different managers have tried their luck here. John F. Antisdel, the last of them, ran the house since 1874. He too had to contend with heavy losses.
The fire
On January 10, 1883, around four in the morning, a fire broke out in the elevator of the six-story hotel or in the immediate vicinity of the elevator shaft. The first alarm occurred at 4:05 a.m. At the time, a large part of Milwaukee's firefighters were busy putting out two smaller fires in other parts of town. At 4:12 a.m. all emergency services were on their way to the burning hotel. Thick smoke had developed there, and panic had broken out among the hotel's guests and servants. Few managed to get to the main entrance on Michigan Street or escape via the fire escape. The flames continued to spread from the third floor. They had captured the entire southeast corner of the building before the extinguishing work could even begin. Within a short time, several thousand onlookers turned up, but they were not ready to help rescue the trapped: A jumping sheet that should have been handled by 30 people was spread out by some rescue workers to catch the people who were in front of them the fire on the windowsill on the upper floors. But the people who let themselves fall into this jumping mat or who passed out could not be caught by the few men and hit the pavement despite the jumping mat. This is how Allen W. Johnson and his wife died: the jumping mat was simply torn from the hands of the helpers by the impact. More desperate guests jumping out the windows died on Michigan Street. The wires for the telegraph line on the south and east fronts of the building did not bring any salvation either. Of the 60 waitresses who were housed on the sixth floor, only a few survived: The two firefighters Edward Ryemer and Herman Strauss used a ladder from the roof of a neighboring bank building as an emergency bridge and were able to rescue several people from the accommodation for the staff. Other people were brought out of the flames by two brothers named Clayton and professional rescue workers. At about five o'clock, part of the building collapsed and the flames shot up about 50 feet. The fact that there was a thick blanket of snow on the neighboring buildings prevented further fires from the flying sparks. At 5:30 a.m., the facade on Broadway collapsed and buried, among others, the helper Ben Van Haag.
Fire chief Lippert had requested reinforcements from Chicago , Racine and the local barracks. However, these helpers were later called back after it became clear that the fire had not spread to neighboring buildings and was under control. In retrospect, it turned out that there would have been enough escape routes, but they had apparently not been found in the thick smoke in the building.
Arson?
On January 16, 1883, George Scheller, a former employee of the house that owned the Newhall Bar, was arrested. He was accused of starting the fire in the hotel around 3 a.m. on January 10th. Scheller was said to have set fire to his own house in North Point two years earlier. This rumor could be refuted, but it was also found that the day before the hotel fire, he had transported $ 700 worth of drinks from the bar to his private quarters and that this property was significantly overinsured. On April 17, 1883, however, the court acquitted him of all guilt in the fire.
Victim
Over 70, according to some sources over 100 people died in the hotel fire. Many of the victims of the fire could no longer be identified.
Among the dead was the wife of John Gilbert of the Minnie Palmer Company. She had only married him the day before the fire. John Gilbert himself was seriously injured.
Professor Benjamin Mason also died in the flames. He had taught English language and literature at the University of Milwaukee and, as a personal acquaintance of the hotel manager, Mr. Antisdel, lived in a room very close to his premises. Still, he apparently could not be saved.
The victims are also known by name, Captain James P. Vose, who left a four-year-old child, and the judge George Reed. The place Reedsville (Wisconsin) was named after Reed .
There is a memorial stone for the dead at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. 40 unidentified victims of the fire are also buried there. The memorial stone was designed by Henry Ogden Avery .
Survivors
102 people survived the fire. These included the actor and entertainer Charles Stratton and his wife Lavinia Warren .
Others
A ballad was later written about the fire in the hotel and it became very popular. The Milwaukee Public Museum holds some items recovered from the ruins. The Hilton Garden Inn hotel was later built on the same spot .
Web links
- Report in the New York Times, January 11, 1883
- Information on the history of the hotel and the names of numerous victims
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www3.gendisasters.com/wisconsin/9407/milwaukee-wi-newhall-house-fire-jan-1883-scheller-arrested
- ↑ http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E05E7D71530E433A2575BC1A9629C94629FD7CF
- ↑ http://www3.gendisasters.com/wisconsin/9406/milwaukee-wi-newhall-house-fire-jan-1883-among-lost-dead-missing
- ↑ http://www3.gendisasters.com/wisconsin/9408/milwaukee-wi-newhall-house-fire-jan-1883-evidence-against-scheller
- ↑ http://www3.gendisasters.com/wisconsin/6231/newhall-house-fire-milwaukee-wi-jan-10-1883
- ↑ http://www.jstor.org/pss/4632967
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 43 ° 2 ′ 15.6 " N , 87 ° 54 ′ 28.8" W.