Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1904 — GAS WRECKS A HOTEL. [ARTICLE]

GAS WRECKS A HOTEL.

Disaster Near Marion, Ind., Results in the Loss of Three. Human Lives. TWO PEOPLE FATALLY HURT.’ Disaster Caused by Escaping Natnnu 2 Gas—Three Men Killed at Cambria Steel MilL Marion, Ind., Jan. 2T.—Three paragons were burned to death, two fatai-i----ly injured and ten less seriously hurt in a hotel here. The cause was a gas * explosion. The building was destroyed. It was the Seitz hotel at Thirty-eighth » Btreet and Home avenue. The dead are Charles Beitei, prepri etor of the hotel; Mrs. Charles Beitei . bis wife, and James Devlin, proprietor - bf the case. The fatally injured are Edward Gaskill and L. H. Hobis, an oil well contractor. Those seriously injured are; Thomas--Twigg, Randall Biddle, John Dicherty. John Scott, Miss Carrie Ring, Orville Beitei, Harry Beitei, William East , Frank Gaskill, and Mist* Pearl Gaskill. Natural Gan Got Lnnse. The seriously injured were all guest j - of the hotel. The hotel was near the national military home, three miles 1 from the center of the city. Natural gas is said to have escaped from t. pipe line that passed pear the building the basement being and when the rooms on the first floor began to fill with gas it was ignited by the jets. The building was a two-story brick having five business rooms on the first. floor, the hotel occupying the secern A floor, and having about thirty rooms There were thirty guests at the hotel. G casts Under Wiscks**. The outer walls were btawn out, the second floor falling on the first, with the roof on it. The guests were under the wreckage, which at oneo ignited They were asleep in their Tooms when? the explosion occurred. Rescuers had great difficulty in taking the injured from the wreckage. The gas could not be shut oflT, and fed the fire, which continued to gain headway. The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Better could be seen through the flames and wreckage for an hour before they could he re covered.