Here’s an interesting site dedicated to disasters that have affected a number of cities, including Buffalo, in the past. Just today I discovered an interesting article posted on the Richmond Hotel fire of 1887. The Richmond Hotel was located at the corner of Main and Eagle streets (southeast corner), and the horrific tragedy included a number of people lost and injured in the blaze. The hotel was later rebuilt (1890) as the Iroquois Hotel. That hotel was demolished in 1940 to be replaced with the Bond Clothing Co. Building (see Chuck LaChiusa’s site for complete history). At first I was mainly interested in the building structure – just this morning Steel had sent out an email discussing some of the structural losses on Court Street mere moments before I came across the GenDisasters site.
When I conducted a search for the Richmond Hotel disaster, I found myself reading a couple of newspaper accounts from the day. Upon reading, I found myself fascinated with detailed accounts of just about every person affected by the blaze – including social status, business, family ties, etc. Back in the day, it appears that just about everyone staying at a hotel like the Richmond had some sort of a rank and file. On top of that, the grizzly descriptions of the events were fairly gruesome. What a different time it was.
GenDisasters is readily searchable by state, disaster, city… and if you’re familiar with Buffalo’s history, then you know that there are plenty of postings to ‘page’ through.