1946 — June 5, Fire, LaSalle Hotel, Chicago, IL — 61

–61 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 333.
–61 Cote, Arthur E. (ed.). Organizing for Fire and Rescue Services. NFPA, 2003, p. 26.
–61 Illinois Fire Service Institute. “Firefighter Record…Eugene Freemon…LaSalle Hotel Fire.”
–61 McElroy, James K. “The LaSalle Hotel Fire.” Quarterly of the [NFPA], 40/1, July 1946, 4
–61 National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
–61 NFPA. Summary of Fire Incidents 1934-2006 in Hotel Fires in the United States. 2008
–61 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, p. 2.
–61 Sawyers. “The Night Chicago Suffered…Worst Hotel Disaster.” Chicago Tribune, 5-31-87
–61 Ward. “Hotel Fires: Landmarks in Flames…,” Firehouse, March 1978, p. 41.

Narrative Information

IFSI: “….On June 5, 1946, Chicago Fire Department Battalion Chief Eugene T. Freemon, commander of the 1st Battalion, was fatally injured in the line of duty while fighting a 5-11 fire at the LaSalle Hotel, located at the intersection of LaSalle and Madison Streets in downtown Chicago. The worst hotel fire in Chicago history, sixty-one people died during the LaSalle Hotel Fire, thirty more were hospitalized, and more than two hundred others were injured.

“Investigators were unable to pinpoint the cause of the fire, but it originated shortly after midnight either behind the walls or in the ceiling of the Silver Grill Cocktail Lounge, a bar adjoining the LaSalle Hotel lobby. Customers soon noticed the smell of burning wood, and when small flames shot up from beneath the lounge’s wood-paneled walls, there was an unsuccessful attempt to extinguish the fire using seltzer water and sand. The fire department was not immediately alerted, and during this time the flames spread through the walls and ceilings, fed by the elaborate, highly-varnished wood paneling throughout the lounge, the two-story hotel lobby, and the mezzanine balcony overlooking the lobby.

“The fire department received the first report of the fire at 12:35 AM, fifteen minutes after the flames were first discovered. Freemon arrived minutes later with Engine 40, Hook and Ladder 6, and Squad 1, and immediately pulled a 2-11 alarm when he saw the wall of flames in the hotel lobby. A few minutes later, a 5-11 alarm was ordered, bringing more than 300 firefighters to the scene. By this time, the fire had spread up two open staircases to the third, fourth, and fifth floors, and smoke filled the building.

“Freemon led a group of firefighters into the building to search for victims once the flames in the lobby were under control, but a portion of the mezzanine collapsed onto the firefighters. The trapped firefighters were rescued, but it took another thirty minutes before the lobby fire was completely extinguished and even more time to extinguish the flames on the floors above. Freemon was transported to a hospital, but died, having been overcome by smoke.

“In the end, more than 150 hotel occupants were rescued from the lower seven floors via fire department ladders, and a majority of guests, 900 in all, were able to escape using the hotel’s extensive network of fire escapes. Of the sixty hotel occupants who died, a majority were killed from smoke inhalation during the first minutes of the fire. The loss of life was blamed on the extensive combustible woodwork throughout the hotel lobby, and the lack of fire protection systems, including sprinklers, detectors, and fire alarms. The LaSalle Hotel Fire also prompted the city to begin installing two-way radios into all fire apparatus.” (Illinois Fire Service Institute. “Firefighter Record…Eugene Freemon…LaSalle Hotel Fire.”)

LIFE: “Last year was the worst period for fires in recent American history with loss of life and property damage reaching new highs. Major hotel fires alone numbered more than 30 and killed 272 people, the greatest death toll in decades. Two thirds of these deaths occurred in two hotels – the LaSalle in Chicago and the Winecoff in Atlanta.

“Yet these two hotels, and many another which burned last year, were proudly advertised as ‘fireproof’ and were regularly passed by inspecting authorities. Actually the term fireproof simply means that a building will not collapse when it is completely gutted by fire. By this exact definition even a furnace is fireproof.

“Accordingly the building codes of most U.S. cities now require not only fireproof construction in tall buildings but firesafe compartmenting (see nest two pages [diagrams omitted here]). In this way the fire, once started, can be limited and controlled in small sections of the building. But unfortunately the building laws in most cities are not retroactive and are not applied to thousands of structures which were put up before the new laws were passed. In cities where the laws have been made retroactive, they are often poorly enforced. After last year’s experiences, however, fire-prevention agencies and insurance companies, which have taken their worst financial beating in many years, are conducting more safety campaigns than ever before to teach hotel fire prevention to a newly aroused and indignant public.

Open Shafts Send Flames

“The greatest fire hazards in tall buildings are vertical, open stairways and shafts. These shafts open onto each floor and act as vast chimneys capable of sucking fire and toxic gases up 10 floors in less than five minutes. Through grilled elevator doors, propped-open stairdoors and air-vent openings, the heated gas and flames mushroom into the corridors, often exploding into sudden flame when thy meet fresh air and fuel. Both the Winecoff and LaSalle hotel fires started on lower floors but quickly sent flames raging up stair wells and shafts. Deadly fumes and smoke rapidly filled corridors and kept people from using them to reach fire escapes. More deaths were caused by suffocation from smoke and gases than by flames. As the experts pointed out after these fires, most of the guests would have been safer if instead of plunging into smoke-clouded corridors, hey had barricaded themselves in their rooms, kept the doors and transoms tightly shut and crouched on the floor near a partly open window to wait for rescue.

“…the National Board of Fire Underwriters, the best-known prevention agency in the U.S…and other protective experts recommend that all tall buildings be compartmented like battleships, so that if fires start, they can be confined to small sections of the building. All shafts and stair wells should be sealed off from each floor by self-closing fire doors and foot-thick walls so that fire will not involve upper floors. Corridors should be equipped with automatic fire doors so that sections can be isolated immediately. Room doors should be heavy and have no transoms or air-conditioning arrangements that suck air in from the corridors. Any shafts that go through the roof should be capped only with plain glass so that firefighters can break through to ‘vent’ the shaft and douse the fire before explosive gases concentrate. For means of escape all authorities agree that fully closed, thick-walled stairways and fire towers are better than outside fire escapes which pass by windows belching smoke and flame.

“It is very doubtful, however, that any building in which people live can be made completely proof against fire. Hotels, crammed as they are with tons of combustible sheets, blankets, mattresses and carpets, will always face the possibility of fire no matter what the precautions. In some buildings where the recommended structural changes are impossible, automatic sprinkler systems, fire alarms and constant rigid inspection will help. But no laws or structural barriers can curb the careless smokers or the drunken match droppers who started hundreds of the thousands of minor hotel fires in 1946.” (LIFE. “Hotel Fires. Experts work to prevent repetition of conflagrations of last year, the worst in recent U.S. history.” 1-13-1947, pp. 33-36.)

McElroy: “During the night of June 5, 1946, sixty-one of the more than 1000 guests and employees of the LaSalle Hotel in Chicago lost their lives as a result of fire which originated above a suspended combustible ceiling in the Silver Cocktail Lounge, directly off the first floor lobby of the hotel.

“Those who lost their lives in this hotel tragedy have joined the victims of past holocausts—the Triangle Shirt Waist fire, the Cocoanut Grove fire, the Hart¬ford circus fire and others—who died that fire prevention and fire protection meas¬ures necessary to the safeguarding of the public be inescapably drawn to the attention of architects and interior decorators, building officials, fire engineers, hotel managements and the traveling public. Obviously, the LaSalle Hotel fire provides lessons in inherent structural hazards, as well as equally important lessons in the behavior of people faced with an emergency of overwhelmingly tragic possibili¬ties. In this instance, all concerned be¬lieved that they were secure in a ‘fire-proof’ hotel.

“The high degree of combustibility of the interior construction of the cocktail lounge, the adjoining coffee shop, lobby and mezzanine, together with unprotected openings into the elevator shaft at the first floor, and the open stairways (of non¬combustible construction) which extended from the basement through the nineteenth floor, were of enormous importance in the development of the fire and the resultant loss of life.

Building Construction

“Throughout the thirty-seven years since the hotel was designed and built and in the absence of serious fire in a vulnerable location in the building, the LaSalle was erroneously thought to be of ‘fireproof’ construction. Other than the highly com¬bustible interior finish which had such disastrous effect when a serious fire did occur, the structure can be considered fire-resistive. It is twenty-two stories in height with basement and sub-basement, of pro¬tected steel-frame and reinforced concrete construction. Exterior walls are brick panel type, with interior partitions of 3-in. hollow tile plastered on both sides. Above the second floor level there is an interior court with a continuous corridor around it, with rooms opening off the corridors on both sides. Wood panel doors and tran¬soms were provided for all rooms. Except for steel sash and wired glass windows in the exterior wall exposing another build¬ing across an alley, the sash throughout were of wood construction.

“The interior means of egress from the structure, in addition to the unprotected stairways adjacent to the two banks of pas¬senger elevators, were three enclosed non¬combustible stairways which did not open directly to the outside at the ground floor level. At the time of the fire a door lead¬ing to the enclosed stairway near the ser¬vice elevators at the mezzanine floor had been left open, and this stair, which offered the nearest egress to the outside of the building at the first floor, could not be used. Two exterior fire escapes were pro¬vided at the ends of the north and south corridors on each floor. Each discharged into the alley by means of a counterbal¬anced section at the first floor level.

“Thus was the scene set for the tragedy. No one, least of all those who had known the LaSalle Hotel throughout its long his¬tory of public service, realized the inherent danger that existed in the beautiful walnut veneer paneling of the large lobby and mezzanine floor, the combustibility of the interior finish of the cocktail room and coffee shop, or the consequences of un¬protected concealed spaces.

“The cocktail lounge, where the fire orig¬inated, was of more recent vintage than the quietly ornate, paneled lobby and mezzanine. It was a room within a room, constructed of wood studs with gypsum block filler, covered with an attractive but highly combustible interior finish. A circular wood bar was in the center of the room; there were tables and a continuous upholstered wall seat around the walls. The interior finish of the adjoining and communicating coffee shop was also high¬ly combustible, though of different fibrous material, and both rooms opened directly into the paneled lobby.

“Whether or not the paneling in the lobby and mezzanine was fire-stopped had long been forgotten, and firemen over¬hauling after the fire discovered it was not. Who would have coldly calculated prior to the fire that the artistic brain that conceived and designed the warmth and beauty of the paneling had, in effect, put a barn of approximately 60 ft. x 120 ft. in size within a 22-story, fire-resistive structure? What fire or building inspector would have been so inordinately curious that he would ride the top of a passenger elevator cab and discover that additional exhaust ventilation for the cocktail lounge had been improvised by cutting an other-wise concealed hole approximately 3 feet in diameter in the masonry elevator shaft, or that there was a small opening in the tile wall of the same shaft at the first floor level which opened directly into the con¬cealed wall space behind the wall seat of the cocktail lounge? These two openings into the elevator shaft, as well as the lack of masonry above the elevator door lintels behind the wood paneling at the first floor lobby. openings to both banks of passenger elevators, eventually contributed. to the passage of heat and smoke throughout the upper floors of the building.

Cause.

“The exact cause of the fire in the cock¬tail lounge is unknown. Two alternative possibilities existed. One, that an un¬ventilated metal and glass indirect lighting fixture overheated and ignited wood above the suspended combustible ceiling. The second, that a carelessly handled cigarette in the elevator shaft may have passed through the small opening into the con¬cealed space behind the wall seat in the cocktail lounge. Either theory is credible.

Discovery and Alarm.

“There is conflicting testimony regarding the discovery of the fire and the resultant alarm. A customer in the Silver Cocktail Lounge reported that he saw a small wisp of smoke, at first thought to be steam, at approximately 12:20 A.M. Smoke was seen to come from behind a seat cushion of a wall seat adjacent to the small opening in the elevator shaft wall, and when the seat was removed fire was visible. The customer who first noticed the fire report¬ed that he walked into the street and pro¬ceeded to the nearest corner, where there was a blind newsboy who delivered papers at the hotel news stand. The customer told the blind boy not to go into the hotel as there was a fire in the lounge, and asked for directions to the nearest street alarm box! The boy was unfamiliar with a box location, and the customer gave up his idea of pulling a street box. Familiar with the hotel building, but not with the hotel management’s instructions in the event of fire emergency, the customer believed that an immediate alarm would be given by hotel personnel, and stood across the street quietly awaiting the arrival of the fire department. A few minutes later he saw flames shooting into the street from the window opening on to LaSalle Street from the cocktail lounge. Fire apparatus had not yet arrived. Other reports place the time of discovery at various times up to 12:30 A.M.

“The first fire engine company arrived promptly from its station a short distance away, following the receipt of a telephoned alarm from the hotel at 12:35 A.M. The fire department verified the statement of the bar’s customer that fire was coming out of the window of the cocktail lounge as they rolled to a stop. A second alarm was given at 12:37 A.M. The fifth alarm fol¬lowed at 12:42 A.M. In all, thirty-four engine companies, five ladder companies, three squad companies, two water towers, two high pressure tenders and one ambu¬lance responded to the fifth alarm. Special calls brought out five more ladder com¬panies, seven more squad companies and fifty-two police patrol wagons for use as ambulances.

“What transpired in the period between the discovery of fire and the telephoned alarm is not yet clear. Hotel officials, how¬ever, testified at the inquest that hotel rules provided that employees of the hotel were not permitted to call the fire department without first reporting to their superiors, who in turn reported fire to either the manager, the house detective, the chief en-gineer or the chief electrician. These men were authorized to call the telephone operator, who then transmitted the alarm to the fire department IF she recognized the voice of the caller as that of a respon¬sible department head. It is reported that in this instance, the hotel detective author¬ized the telephone operator to call the fire department.

“The exact time that the heroic telephone operator started to warn occupants of the upper floors of the hotel may not be deter¬mined. Later this woman, trapped behind the barred windows of her second floor switchboard room in the rear of the building, lost her life by asphyxiation. Hundreds, including a blind woman and her “seeing eye” dog, walked down the fire escapes on the alley side of the building. Many escaped due to prompt and effective ladder work by firemen working to out¬side windows of the building. Many were saved by firemen, policemen and others who assisted in the search of smoke-filled corridors and rooms.

“The length of time that the fire if it originated in the concealed ceiling space over the cocktail lounge, smoldered and worked its way down the concealed space between the lobby paneling or behind the back of the wall seat near the elevator shaft will never be known, but it was cer¬tainly aided by the draft through the small opening into the 22-story masonry-walled elevator shaft.

The Fire Spreads.

“From appearances following the extin¬guishment of the fire, the course of fire spread was extremely rapid as soon as the highly combustible interior finish of the cocktail lounge was totally involved, and was aided and abetted by the improvised 3-ft, ventilation opening into the adjacent elevator shaft. The ease with which fire could spread out of the cocktail lounge into the lobby and coffee shop is not sur¬prising and was due to the combustibility of the interior finish of these areas and the presence of unprotected openings from both the cocktail lounge and the coffee shop into the lobby. Heat from the fire raging in the cocktail lounge and the coffee shop undoubtedly caused the dried-out highly varnished walnut veneer on the paneling to delaminate. Thus, ignition of the delaminating veneer occurred at a much lower temperature than had ordinary wood been involved. Laboratory tests on representative samples of the panels since the fire indicate the surface spread of fire on the face of the panels was approxi-mately five times faster than surface spread on ordinary red oak.

“The lack of masonry above the lobby floor elevator doors behind the wood pan¬eling is believed to have become vital at this point, as 22-story flues in the two banks of passenger elevators were now available to the fire. Unquestionably, the open stairways adjacent to these elevators, which extended upwards to the nineteenth floor, also provided a strong draft. Later it was discovered by firemen that heat from the first floor fire sweeping up the non-combustible open stairways ignited combustible interior trim on the LaSalle Street side of the building on the second, third, fourth and fifth floors.

“Such was the task confronting the first engine company to arrive on the scene. Firemen drove their way into the inferno from the LaSalle Street entrance, using four hose lines….As more engine companies arrived and water could be put on the fire, it was brought under control in about a half hour by fighting into the lobby from the Madison street side as well. One en¬gine company fought its way up the open stair to the mezzanine behind the passen¬ger elevator and thence to the seat of the fire in the corridors of the second, third, fourth and fifth floors. It was a tough job and well done.
Observations Following the Fire.

“Standing in the center of the burned-out lobby after the fire with a clear view to the top of the open stairway at the second floor, the raw tile partition of the second floor corridor, from which plaster had spalled, was clearly visible. The wonder is that any one on the lower floors of the building on the LaSalle Street side escaped with his life. Two women cashiers were found dead behind their cage on the first floor; no lives were lost in the basements. A mass of debris, the result of overhauling, lay at one side of the room. Removal of the remaining paneling from the columns, walls and ceilings laid bare the undamaged concrete and tile-protected columns and beams, monuments to the trust placed in them years ago and so recently put to the test.

“It was immediately noticeable that the passenger elevator shafts had served as flues. inspection of the elevator machinery platform above the twenty-second floor disclosed scorched and burned wood tim¬bers. Paint on metal ventilation equip¬ment six feet from an open window at the top of the shaft was also scorched. In the same general location, ten feet from the elevator platform window, a Fahrenheit thermometer calibrated to 120° F. had burst.

“There was little indication of damage on the twentieth and twenty-first floors except for paint blisters on the metal ele¬vator door frames and doors which, throughout the length of both shafts, did the work expected of them.

“The wood window frame on the outside court wall of the north passenger elevator shaft was burned out at the nineteenth floor. Observation from the roof disclosed that all frames in this shaft were burned to the court roof sixteen floors below.

“Condensation marks near the ceiling on the walls of the corridors of the eighteenth floor were the first indication of the pres¬ence and amount of smoke and hot gases which filled the building.

“With minor variations, the floor layout of rooms and corridors is typical from the third to the seventeenth floors… At the seventeenth floor, the condensation mark on the corridor walls was approximately five feet above the cor¬ridor floor. It was thus evident that the red exit lights near the ceiling in the corri¬dors at the fire escape exits would not have been visible to occupants of rooms who were not familiar with their locations prior to smoke filling the corridors. Whether significant or not, all electric clocks in the corridors had stopped at 12:42 A.M

“The first indication of the important part in the tragedy played by the wood transoms and doors to the rooms in the building was visible on the seventeenth floor. Rooms with open transoms were found to be damaged by smoke on the in¬side. Those which had closed transoms were unmarked by fire or smoke. Walking through the seventeenth floor corridor with its clearly visible evidence of heat and smoke, it was impossible not to con¬sider the number of lives that might have been saved had only the corridors of the upper floors been protected by automatic sprinklers.

“From the seventeenth floor to the twelfth floor there was very little differ¬ence in the appearance of the rooms and corridors.

“On the eleventh floor, smoke and heat discoloration in the corridors extended to the floor level and was more pronounced in appearance in the corridors off the open stairways on the LaSalle Street side of the building. This condition became worse from the eleventh to the sixth floors, With the soot and condensation more heavily encrusted on the walls.

“While the safety of occupants in the corridors above the sixth floor was doubt¬ful, there is little doubt that occupants of rooms from the sixth to the second floors, particularly those in the inside court rooms, were faced with a horrible choice. Almost certain rescue was possible for those on the outside of the building.

“Fire and heat had belched into the in¬terior court from the court windows on the third, fourth and fifth floors, and the typi¬cal rooms Nos. 46 and 47 on these floors were effectively cut off. An unconscious woman was found by firemen after the fire was extinguished on the floor of the bath¬room of No. 546, and she lived. Rooms adjoining with open transoms on the fifth and sixth floors were severely damaged, while those with closed transoms were un¬damaged. A battalion chief lost his life from the effects of heat and smoke after be was found on the sixth floor smoke- filled corridor floor and removed via the fire escape.

“Spalled plaster was evident in the area of the open stairways on the fourth floor. It was amazing to find wood panel doors which had held against the fire in the cor¬ridors. Some doors had even burned off their hinges, without soot or smoke marks on the interior of the rooms. Doors to rooms Nos. 400 and 401 in the extreme southwest corner were scorched on the corridor side…. Wood doors and transoms which had burned through without soot or smoke damage in the rooms indicated the strong pull which the open stairways exerted on the fire burning on the first floor fed by the walnut veneer paneling, the highly combustible interior finish of the cocktail lounge and the coffee shop.

“The cast iron risers of the open stair¬way failed from the heat on the flight of steps from the third to the second floors. It is fair to state that the most severe dam¬age above the first floor was found on the second floor near the elevator lobby and at the head of the open stairways from the lobby to the second floor. Glass in win¬dows and lighting fixtures fused on the second, third, fourth and fifth floors. Rooms on the second floor were largely used for office space, and fortunately were vacant at the time the fire occurred. Oddly, the rear corridor of the second floor was only damaged by soot and smoke, yet it was in this area that the telephone opera¬tor lost her life due to the barred windows on her switchboard room. An effort was made to save her, but she collapsed during the attempt.

Loss of Life.

“Many lost their lives by asphyxiation; many were found without a mark on their bodies, lying prone in corridors, rooms and bathrooms. There is no accurate ac¬count of the locations in which loss of life occurred, though bodies were found on several floors above the first floor and mez¬zanine. The body of a male employee of the hotel was found on the twenty-second floor, but he is believed to have died from overexertion in climbing the enclosed stairway. Several died from burns. Seven bodies were found on the roof of the inner court over the lobby at the second floor. In view of the undamaged condition of many rooms which had both the doors and transoms closed, it is reasonable to believe that many of those in outside rooms who lost their lives could .have saved themselves had they calmly closed the doors and tran¬soms and opened windows.

“Those in rooms with windows opening into the interior court who could clearly see fire breaking from the windows of the passenger elevator shaft up to the nine¬teenth floor and the third and fourth floor windows adjoining the open stairways and the passenger elevator banks were no doubt justified in their frantic belief that the fire which was gutting the paneled lobby and mezzanine, the cocktail lounge and the coffee shop was burning through all floors of the hotel. It is certain that those on inside court rooms of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors were in loca¬tions which were untenable, either in the rooms or corridors, shortly after the fire in the lobby was well started. The odds against successfully living through the holocaust in these rooms were tremendous, although most of those who lost their lives on these four floors were found in the cor¬ridors. On all floors there were rooms undamaged by smoke or heat, protected by closed wood panel doors and transoms.

“The toxic effects, if any, of the artificial leather seats in the cocktail lounge and coffee shop did not contribute to the loss of life.

“This is the largest loss of life reported to the Fire Record Department of the N.F.P.A. in a hotel building erroneously considered to be “fireproof” throughout. For this reason the post-fire effect on the traveling public, hotel managements, building and fire officials, architects and others has deep significance.
Conclusions.

“From the mass of factors of errors of omission and commission, many of which are under study and are not yet fully re¬ported by the several investigations in progress in Chicago, several. emerge which are of immediate importance to the public.

“Some factors are negative, some are posi¬tive, and it is impossible to summarize the preliminary conclusions which can be reached in the first few days following the destruction and loss of life at the LaSalle Hotel without considering both:

1. This loss of life should be the final answer to manufacturers, architects, in¬terior decorators and designers who con¬tinuously resist all attempts to limit the use of highly combustible interior-finish building materials. Certainly, had not the highly combustible nature of the interior finish in the cocktail lounge given the fire its original impetus, it could easily have been confined to the upholstered wall seats.

2. While the exact cause of the fire in the suspended combustible ceiling of the cocktail lounge may never be determined the fact that this and other concealed spaces in the room were not protected by automatic sprinkler or automatic fire alarm systems was responsible for delay in dis¬covery of the disastrous fire which ensued.

3. Had any of the myriad of building and fire inspectors who must have inspect¬ed the LaSalle Hotel throughout its exist¬ence discovered the two openings cut into the passenger elevator shaft adjacent to the cocktail lounge, it is entirely possible that the draft necessary to keep the fire smouldering in the concealed ceiling space and walls of the cocktail lounge would not have been possible. These openings, visible to the inspector only from the INSIDE of the elevator shaft, as was the lack of masonry behind the wood paneling above the elevator doors on the first floor, played a large part in the rapid spread of fire and heat. Their discovery after the fire should point an important lesson to all inspection authorities.

4. Loss of life might not have occurred from the fire, large as it was on the first and mezzanine floors, had self-closing doors been provided in the corridors at the head of each flight of the non-combus¬tible, open stairways in locations which might be described as the inside corner of the series of rooms on the upper floors known as Nos. 46 and 47… Full enclosure of the open stair¬ways would have been best solution, but retroactive requirements are difficult to sell to owners, if not outright impossible to enforce legally. Some way must be found to legally require owners to make their properties safe for the public, who refuse to follow good practice of their own volition.

5. Disregarding all structural defi¬ciencies which contributed to the loss of life in the LaSalle Hotel fire, the cumbersome process of dispatching a fire alarm to the fire department (the policy of this and other hotels), had disastrous effect. Whatever the exact passage of time may have been before the alarm was given to the fire department by the hotel, in this instance it was too long. When fire companies arrived promptly after being summoned, flames were shooting from the street windows of the cocktail lounge and the lobby was a mass of flames. The fact that cranks, drunks and other disorderly persons are prone to turn in false alarms from a hotel must not be a deterrent to finding the necessary solution to the problem of giving fire departments an even break in extinguishing fire in its incipient stage in hotels and other properties.

6. The absence of a local alarm in the corridors, which could have been operated from the switchboard room, contributed to the loss of life.

7. There is no doubt that the provi¬sion of automatic sprinkler protection for the corridors of the hotel (without any other important action) would have en¬abled many of those who died to live. Occupants were forced or driven by panic to leave their rooms and died of suffoca¬tion or smoke inhalation in the corridors. The Chicago Fire Department, once on the scene, “knocked the fire down” in good time, though too late to save those who were aroused too late to escape by the heated and smoke-filled corridors.

8. Some way must be found, without unnecessarily disturbing the traveling pub¬lic, to make certain that each guest shown to a room in a hotel knows his way out of the building in which he trusts his life, however temporarily. When corridors are full of smoke, lights at exits (however safe the corridor may otherwise be) will be obscured.

9. The exterior fire escapes, while used without injury in this fire, were use-ful only because of the largely fire-resistant character of the building. The inside enclosed stairways did not open directly to the outside of the building at the ground floor level, and their use would have brought guests or employees into the cen¬ter of the raging fire on the first and mez¬zanine floors.”

(McElroy, James K. “The LaSalle Hotel Fire.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 40, No. 1, July 1946, pp. 4-18.)

Sawyers: “Built in 1909, it was called ‘the most comfortable, modern and safest hotel west of New York City.’ The La-Salle Hotel, a 22-story structure at LaSalle and Madison Streets, with its ornate walnut-paneled lobby and rooftop garden, was the city’s most famous, especially during the pre-World War II years. It was a favorite of the country’s elite. The likes of Mrs. Potter Palmer and other ‘ladies of fashion’ loved to dine in its sumptuous Blue Fountain Room. And for many years the state GOP kept its headquarters there.

“But shortly after midnight on June 5, 1946, a devastating blaze swept through the supposedly fireproof building, reducing its magnificent lobby to a charred cavern, taking the lives of 61 people and leaving more than 200 injured.

“The fire, the worst hotel blaze in the city’s history, started in an elevator shaft in the Silver Lounge on the ground floor. A former marine, several guests and some hotel employees tried to extinguish the flames with seltzer water, but the intense heat soon drove them from the lounge and into the street. Three explosions then shook the Madison Street entrance, and the flames and billowing smoke quickly spread through the mezzanine and to the upper floors.

“Many of the guests panicked, but others kept calm and managed to escape to safety. A husband and wife, trapped on the 18th floor, leaned out of a bathroom window to breathe the clear night air, the wife absentmindedly applying lipstick as they waited to be rescued. Joseph Hearst, who had just returned from China as a Tribune war correspondent, and his wife survived by wrapping wet towels around their faces and finding their way to a fire escape. In a rash move that could have cost him his life, an orchestra leader dashed back to his dressing room to rescue his $3,500 violin. He was later seen wading through water from the fire hoses to salvage musical arrangements valued at several thousand dollars.

“Sailors Robert Might and Joseph O’Keefe and three civilians dragged at least 27 people to safety. Two guests came upon a man, a legless amputee, lying unconscious in a hallway and carried him down seven flights of stairs. Anita Blair of El Paso, Tex., 23 and blind, calmly donned robe and slippers and followed her seeing-eye dog, Fawn, to a window and down 11 flights on a fire escape.

“Lt. Col. Ralph P. Weaver of Kansas City, however, stayed in his room, not emerging until the next morning, unharmed, cleanly shaven and crisply dressed. Others were not so fortunate. By 5:30 a.m., City Hall, a few doors away, had been converted into a makeshift first-aid station and morgue where the injured received attention and 42 of the 61 men, women and children who died were laid out in neat rows.

“Most of the deaths were caused by asphyxiation. Many of the victims succumbed because they opened the doors of their rooms, in effect fanning the flames and, disastrously for them, allowing dense smoke to enter.

“According to Fire Marshal John L. Fenn, the fire broke out at 12:15 a.m., but the first alarm was not sounded until 12:35, a 20-minute delay that allowed the blaze to spread. Some investigators said the fire was caused by faulty electrical wiring in a wall of the lounge; others said gas, seeping into the lounge area from newly installed pipes in an adjacent alley, might have been to blame.

“Many fire-related regulations now taken for granted grew out of the proposals made in the aftermath of the LaSalle Hotel fire. Radio-station executives recommended that all firefighting units be equipped with two-way portable radios (only three fire-department vehicles were so equipped). A special mayoral committee proposed that instructions on what to do in case of fire be posted in every hotel room and that every public building constructed of combustible materials be required to have either a sprinkler system or automatic fire alarms. And from an aldermanic group came the idea of 24-hour fire-duty guards and public-address systems for hotels and other public buildings.

“Surviving the fire, the LaSalle Hotel lived on for many more years. Not until July, 1976, did it eventually close its fabled doors, and the building was demolished shortly thereafter.” (Sawyers, June. “The Night Chicago Suffered Its Worst Hotel Disaster.” Chicago Tribune, 5-31-1987.)

Sources

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

Cote, Arthur E. (ed.). Organizing for Fire and Rescue Services. A Special Edition of the Fire Protection Handbook. National Fire Protection Association and Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2003. Google preview accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=M8NZeVI6eZUC&dq=lasalle+hotel+fire+1946&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Illinois Fire Service Institute. “Firefighter Record…Eugene Freemon…LaSalle Hotel Fire.” Accessed 5-13-2013: http://www.fsi.illinois.edu/content/library/IFLODD/search/Firefighter.cfm?ID=451

LIFE. “Hotel Fires. Experts work to prevent repetition of conflagrations of last year, the worst in recent U.S. history.” 1-13-1947, pp. 33-36. Digitized by Google at: http://books.google.com/books?id=TEoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34#v=onepage&q&f=false

McElroy, James K. “The LaSalle Hotel Fire.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 40, No. 1, July 1946, pp. 4-18.

National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996. Accessed 2010 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1352&itemID=30955&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Key%20dates%20in%20fire%20history&cookie%5Ftest=1

National Fire Protection Association. Summary of Fire Incidents 1934-2006 in Hotel Fires in the United States as Reported to the NFPA, with Ten or more Fatalities. Quincy, MA: NFPA, One-Stop Data Shop, Fire Analysis and Research Division, January 2008, 4 pages. Accessed at: http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/Press%20Room/Hotelfirefatalitiesreport.pdf

National Fire Sprinkler Association, Inc. F.Y.I. – Fire Sprinkler Facts. Patterson, NY: NFSA, November 1999, 8 pages. Accessed at: http://www.firemarshals.org/data/File/docs/College%20Dorm/Administrators/F1%20-%20FIRE%20SPRINKLER%20FACTS.pdf

Sawyers, June. “The Night Chicago Suffered Its Worst Hotel Disaster.” Chicago Tribune, 5-31-1987. Accessed 5-13-2013 at: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-05-31/features/8702110017_1_la-salle-hotel-two-guests-upper-floors

Ward, Neale. “Hotel Fires: Landmarks in Flames, History’s Famous Hotel Fires,” Firehouse, March 1978, pp. 40-45.