1835 — May 14, Collapse, Planters’ Hotel, New Orleans, LA — >10
— 25 LA State Museum. #Onthisdate [May 20] in 1835 The Planters Hotel…collapsed…
— >20 Adams Sentinel and…Advertiser, Gettysburg, PA. “Awful Catastrophe” 6-1-1835, p. 6.
— 20 Taggart, Chuck. Cites: Mary Cable. Lost New Orleans. NY: Amer. Legacy, 1980, 108-9.
— >10 Blanchard. Seems clear that at least ten people were killed, perhaps more.
— 10 Horton. History’s Lost Moments Vol. V: The Stories Your Teacher Never Told You.
— 10 Laborde and Magill. Canal Street: New Orleans’ Great Wide Way. 2006, p. 83.
— 10 Oswell, Paul. “Selected Timeline.” New Orleans Historic Hotels. 2014, p. 13.
— 10 Trent. Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave: Annotated Edition. xxxi
Narrative Information
Adams Sentinel: “The ‘Planters’ Hotel’ in Now-Orleans, a large 4 story building, fell into a mass of ruins about 2 o’clock in the night of the 14th. Above sixty persons were in the building at the time — 40 or more of whom were taken out alive from the ruins during the day; the remainder were crushed to death.” (Adams Sentinel and General Advertiser, Gettysburg, PA. “Awful Catastrophe” 6-1-1835, p. 6.)
Horton: “A story that gripped the nation in 1835 was the May 15 Planter’s Hotel fire in New Orleans. The story hopped across the nation as newspaper after newspaper copied it and posted it to their readers. The fire broke out at 2 a.m. and fifty people were buried in the collapsing building. Even though all but ten people were rescued, the horrendous fire captured the imagination of the reading public. Jamie Bennett turned to Nat Currier for an illustration – and the rest has been history. Currier’s etched lithograph of the hotel on fire was done by staff artist J. H. Bufford with no knowledge whatever of the appearance of the Planter’s Hotel or its surroundings.” (Horton. History’s Lost Moments Vol. V: The Stories Your Teacher Never Told You. 2014, p. 24.)
Laborde and Magill: “In the 1830s there were several hotels on Canal Street near the river, and in most cases they were operated like boarding houses. Although hotels tend to offer short-term stays, it was not unusual at the time for some people to use a hotel as their homes. Among the hotels on Canal Street were the Union Hotel and the Planters Hotel, located a few doors from each other between Tchoupitoulas and Magazine streets. They were housed n three-story row buildings that were typical of the commercial style then found throughout the city’s commercial district. The Planters, undergoing repair work on its first floor that most likely weakened its structure, collapsed into a massive pile of rubble at 2 A.M. on May 15, 1835. Fifty of its guests were buried among the bricks and timber. Forty were rescued. The disaster brought crowds of sightseers, and he event garnered enough national attention to warrant a lithographed illustration by Nathaniel Currier.” (Laborde and Magill. Canal Street: New Orleans’ Great Wide Way. 2006, p. 83.)
Taggart: “The St. Charles Hotel actually had three incarnations. The first one was designed by the architect James Gallier, whose name was given to Gallier Hall on St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans’ city hall from 1853- to 1958. It was the first truly grand hotel in the city, which was up until then not known for luxurious accommodations (nor for well-built ones, like the Planters Hotel, which collapsed into the soft soil in 1835, burying sixty people and killing a third of them.” (Cites Mary Cable. Lost New Orleans, pp. 108-109.)
Trent: “As far away as New York, a struggling young lithographer, Nathaniel Currier, published a print showing the ‘Ruins of the Planter’s Hotel, New Orleans, which fell at two o’clock on the morning of the 15th of May 1835, burying 50 persons, 40 of whom escaped with their lives’.” (Trent. “Introduction,” p. xxxi.
Wilson: “…on May 15, 1835, a smaller [than St. Charles hotel] Canal Street establishment, the Planters Hotel which had been built before 1827, collapsed with several casualties.” (Wilson, Samuel, Jr. “Early History of Faubourg St. Mary.” 1998, p. 47.)
Sources
Adams Sentinel and General Advertiser, Gettysburg, PA. “Awful Catastrophe” 6-1-1835, p. 6. Accessed 2-18-2015 at: http://newspaperarchive.com/ThumbImage.ashx?i=199375260
Horton, Tom. “The Story Behind Those Currier and Ives Prints.” Pp. 323-324 in History’s Lost Moments Vol. V: The Stories Your Teacher Never Told You. Trafford Publishers, 2014.
Laborde, Peggy Scott and John Magill. Canal Street: New Orleans’ Great Wide Way. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., Inc., 2006. Google digital preview accessed 2-18-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=Zc-cq4v1vE4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Louisiana State Museum. #Onthisdate in 1835 The Planters Hotel in New Orleans collapsed killing 25 people. Posted 20 May 2011. Accessed 2-18-2015 at: https://twitter.com/lastatemuseum/status/71544463654273024
Oswell, Paul. “Selected Timeline.” New Orleans Historic Hotels. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014. Google preview accessed 2-18-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=bcOwBAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Taggart, Chuck. “The St. Charles Punch.” Cites: Mary Cable. Lost New Orleans. NY: American Legacy Press, 1980, pp 108-109. Accessed 2-18-2015 at: http://looka.gumbopages.com/2010/05/11/the-st-charles-punch/
Trent, Hank (Editor). Narrative of James Williams, an American Slave (Annotated Edition). Louisiana State University Press, 2013. Google digital preview accessed 2-18-2015 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=vWtAAQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Wilson, Samuel, Jr. “Early History of Faubourg St. Mary.” Chapter 1 in New Orleans Architecture, Volume II: The American Sector, edited by Mary Louise Christovich. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., Inc., 1972, 1978, 1984, 1998 (paperback). Google preview accessed 2-18-2015: https://books.google.com/books?id=waDSBKfl-w4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false