The Lakeside House Fire at Hot Springs
A devastating midnight blaze destroys the A. T. & S. F. Railway-owned hotel, marking the second such disaster at the site in less than two years.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A midnight dispatch to the Associated Press from La Verna says: The Lakeside Hotel, La Verna Hot Springs, caught fire from the kitchen last night at half past two and burned nearly to the ground in an hour. The loss is listed at $50,000. A telephone dispatch reports that one man perished in the flames. The hotel was owned by the A. T. & S. F. Railway. It was opened in April last. The company’s hotel on the same site was burned 18 months ago.
“The Lakeside Hotel, La Verna Hot Springs, caught fire from the kitchen last night at half past two and burned nearly to the ground in an hour.”
Resort hotels in the late 19th century were often massive, tinderbox structures that faced frequent destruction by fire, much like the intense struggle to maintain and fire-proof aging timber-frame housing stock in Seattle's dense neighborhoods today.
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