Today’s Fiery Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
When it opened in 1909 at the corner of LaSalle and Madison Streets near the hub of Chicago’s financial district, the 23-story LaSalle Hotel was called the “largest, safest and most modern hotel west of New York City.” Luxury abounded in the hotel’s stately interior: its ornate walnut-paneled lobby and magnificent rooftop garden made it one of the city’s most fashionable venues, a place to see and be seen. From the beginning the LaSalle ranked as a favorite of the elite; Mrs. Potter Palmer and other society divas often dined or held court in its lavish Blue Fountain Room, and for many years, the Illinois Republican Party maintained its headquarters there. During one extended visit to Chicago, President William Howard Taft conducted affairs of state from the hotel, turning the third-floor presidential suite into an ex-officio White House. But missing from the LaSalle was the means to detect and suppress a fire, a situation that ultimately brought the hotel another type of lasting fame. Though not as readily noticeable from a fire protection standpoint, the LaSalle Hotel was as dangerous as any skid row flophouse, and its place in history would be assured as the site of Chicago’s fourth deadliest blaze and America’s third worst hotel fire.
The LaSalle Hotel
At midnight June 5, 1946, there were 1,059 registered patrons occupying the hotel’s 886 rooms. Another 108 employees were on duty. Guests considered themselves fortunate because Chicago was still in the grip of a post-war housing shortage. Most hotel rooms continued to be rationed and guests were allowed lodging only for two or three days.
A few night owls were nursing drinks inside the LaSalle’s ground-floor Silver Grill Cocktail Lounge when, at around 12:20 a.m., someone smelled wood burning. Seconds later smoke and a little flame shot up from beneath the paneling along the lounge’s south wall. Rather than notify the fire department, an ex-marine and several hotel employees tried extinguishing what they thought was a small fire by squirting a bottle of seltzer water at it and throwing sand. But when a large sheet of fire burst through the wall and across the combustible ceiling, their miscalculation became apparent and the fate of the LaSalle was sealed.
With no sprinkler system to impede its progress, the fire quickly grew and completely enveloped the cocktail lounge, forcing the occupants to flee. In no time the fire spread beyond the cocktail lounge into the two-story, wood-paneled lobby – feeding on a plentiful supply of combustible materials that included rugs, furniture, highly varnished walnut paneling, and acoustic ceiling tile – and into the mezzanine level through several large openings overlooking the lobby. So rapidly did the fire spread throughout the ground floor of the supposedly fireproof hotel that two cashiers working in the opposite end of the lobby were killed when they momentarily delayed their escape to gather up valuables.
The destroyed lobby
The fire traveled quickly to the upper residential floors via the two open staircases in the middle of the lobby and the two central elevator shafts. Ringing telephones and cries of help alerted the unsuspecting guests, who upon opening their doors were met by a wall of smoke. Many became disoriented or panicked and ran into the corridors where they inhaled the toxic smoke, collapsed, and died. Smoke was also drawn into guestrooms with open glass transoms, resulting in further deaths.
As much as 15 minutes elapsed before someone telephoned the fire department. Finally, at 12:35 a.m., the main fire alarm office in City Hall received the first fire report. A still alarm was transmitted to nearby Engine 40, Hook-and-Ladder 6, Squad 1, and the chief of the 1st battalion. A fire patrol square was also assigned. When Battalion Chief Eugene Freeman pulled up two minutes later, he found the entire first floor and mezzanine engulfed in flames. The 49-year-old Freeman was no stranger to calamity, having returned to the fire department the previous October after serving two years as a naval lieutenant, where he had been decorated for heroism. He encountered a large number of hotel guests hanging out open windows, calling for help and tossing out lamps and other objects to draw attention. Some had even knotted bed sheets together and hung them out the windows.
With time running against him because of the delay in notification, Freeman ordered Engine 40 to drop two hoselines in front of the hotel’s main entrance and begin fighting the fire from the outside. Truck 6 raised its 85-foot aerial ladder while other firefighters from Squad 1 and the fire patrol used ground ladders to reach guests at the second- and third-story windows, . Several at the lower story windows were rescued, but those above the fourth floor remained beyond reach. Seeing the enormity of the situation, Freeman had his driver run to the nearest fire alarm box 300 feet south of the hotel to transmit a second alarm. The alarm was received at 12:39 a.m., and six minutes later, First Division Marshal Gibbons requested additional help by transmitting a 5-11 alarm, quickly followed by six more special alarms summoning a force of 61 fire companies and 300 firefighters.
Firefighters rescuing LaSalle Hotel tenants
As more engine companies arrived, firefighters stretched 15 hoselines into the lobby. Another 17 hoselines were dragged up ladders and the hotel’s two fire escapes to fight flames between floors two through seven. Firefighters also used 23 hoselines supplied by the building’s standpipe system to extinguish the fires burning in the two central elevator shafts and in the hotel’s penthouse.
Firefighters worked in the lobby while others cooled them off with another horse stream from behind. As the fire lessened, Freeman led firefighters into the foyer area to search for victims. Suddenly a large section of the mezzanine collapsed and trapped the rescuers. Firefighters working outside ran into the building and dug out 30 of their comrades. Though freed, Freeman was critically injured and later died in the hospital from smoke inhalation.
Following the collapse, it took firefighters about 30 minutes to conquer the fire in the lobby, but considerably longer to succeed on the floors above. The dying and dead were lying everywhere, most overcome by smoke. Fire Commissioner Michael Corrigan brought in personnel and life-saving equipment and ordered a search of every room in the building. In their uphill attempts to revive the unconscious victims, rescuers relied on resuscitators or artificial respiration, reportedly saving 50 lives. Fire company reports also indicate that more than 150 others were rescued from the lower seven floors by ladders, while another 900 were led to safety down the two outside fire escapes that emptied into the alley.
Most guests who remained calm escaped with their lives. One couple barricaded themselves in their 18th floor room and stuck their heads out the bathroom window to breathe clean air until firefighters arrived. A Chicago Tribune reporter who had just returned from China and his wife wrapped their faces in wet towels and groped through smoke before reaching a nearby fire escape. Staffers and guests also felt their way through the smoky corridors and helped at least 27 to safety, among them a legless amputee. Perhaps the most dramatic escape was made by a 23-year-old blind woman from El Paso, who, after donning her robe and slippers, calmly followed her seeing eye dog to a window and then down a fire escape.
First Responders at the LaSalle Hotel
A first-aid station and temporary morgue was set up in Chicago City Hall two blocks north on LaSalle Street, where more than 200 received medical attention and where the sheet-covered bodies of 42 of the 61 men, women, and children who died in the fire were laid out in neat rows. Most died or were injured from smoke inhalation. Contrary to initial reports, there was no evidence of severe injury or death from falls from upper floors. Seven bodies – a man, his wife, and their 4-year-old daughter among them – were found on the small court roof above the mezzanine. It is believed these people escaped through adjoining windows but died from the smoke. Of the 61 victims, 50 had died at the scene, losing their lives within 15 minutes of the fire’s discovery. Another nine were dead on arrival at nearby emergency rooms, while the remaining two died later in hospitals.
The dead had varied backgrounds. They included 41-year-old Julia Barry, a night telephone operator at the hotel. A widow, she was the mother of a 16-year-old son and had spent the past 11 years working at the LaSalle. She died at her switchboard on the second-floor while attempting to wake up sleeping guests. Also killed were five Iowa teenagers who had been given a trip to Chicago as a graduation present by their parents, and the mayor and three other public officials from downstate Quincy, Illinois.
Investigators sifting through the ruins the next day were unable to determine exactly how the fire started, but they did pinpoint its origin to a specific concealed wallspace in the Silver Grill Cocktail Lounge adjacent to the LaSalle Street lobby entrance. Investigators put forward the theory that a cigarette may have been tossed into the elevator shaft next to the cocktail lounge, landing in the concealed wall space between the lounge and the lobby. Another possibility was that an overheated ceiling light in the lounge may have ignited the combustible wooden joists in the ceiling, or that a short circuit in improperly-ducted wiring behind the wall sparked the fire. Suspicion that a leaky natural gas line may have played a role was ruled out after a thorough inspection of the utilities.
Burned wreckage of the LaSalle
Further examination revealed the market absence of an automatic sprinkler system, suitable fire detection system, and an audible fire alarm. Had such measures been in place, the fire could have easily been discovered during its incipient stage, triggering an alarm that would have alerted the occupants and the fire department. The use of combustible materials in the lobby and mezzanine also played a key role in the disaster.
Following a $2 million post-fire restoration, the LaSalle reopened in July 1947 and lived on for another 29 years. The Silver Grill Cocktail Lounge was also rebuilt and renamed The Hour Glass. In 1976, the hotel was sold to developers who razed it and built an indiscreet white office tower. No marker commemorates the 61 who lost their lives in the 1946 fire.
Culled from: Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City