Utica, New York
Metropolitan Hotel Fire
May 23, 1907
Smoke Suffocates Two During Utica Hotel
Fire
Several Other Persons, Overcome, Are
Carried Out.
Utica, May 23. -- By a fire that
caused less than $5,000 damage in the
Metropolitan Hotel shortly after midnight, Mrs. Hannah S. Zintsmaster,
an employe of the hotel, and
George James, a
guest, were suffocated in their rooms and died
before the firemen got them to the street.
Six or seven persons were overcome with smoke
and had to be carried out by the firemen and
five or six who attempted to slide to safety
down the ropes from their rooms were either
injured by striking the walk too severely or had
their hands badly lacerated.
The fire started at the bottom of the
elevator shaft and shot to the top of the
four-story building in a moment. Volumes
of smoke poured out the elevator openings and
filled the halls to such an extent that people
could not find the stairways and some of them
were unable to leave their rooms.
The firemen had no difficulty keeping the
fire within the shaft but they had trouble
reaching the rooms and getting the people out
safely. They were aided greatly by the
hotel employes, some of whom went through the
halls breaking open the doors and dragging
people by main strength to the open air.
Syracuse People in Hotel; One Has Narrow
Escape
Mishel Shehadl
of No. 110 Westcott street, a member of the firm
of Shehadl Bros., was a guest at the
Metropolitan Hotel at Utica, in which two people
were suffocated during a fire which broke out at
12:05 o'clock yesterday morning. Mr.
Shehadl escaped by sliding down a rope from the
third floor. His hands were burned by the
rope.
Other names appearing on the hotel register
were: C. F. Cutter
and wife, Syracuse, and
J.
Wilcox and wife, Syracuse.
The Post Standard, Syracuse, NY 24 May
1907
Utica, N. Y., May 23 -- A lighted
cigarette tossed into the cellar of the
Metropolitan hotel through an elevator shaft
caused a fire this morning costing the lives of
two persons and imperilled the lives of half a
hundred guests.
 The dead:
ANNIE SULLIVAN, CHAMBERMAID
GEORGE A. JAMES, OF CLINTON, A GUEST
Several of the rescued are at hospitals in
critical condition.
Coshocton Daily Age, Coshocton, OH 23
May 1907
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