January 1, 1924: New year, same old tragedies
The destructive force of fire is no stranger to the Mile High City, neither are frigid temperatures, but when the two combine, it leads to tragedy.
On New Year’s Day 1924, the Rocky Mountain News readers woke up to two separate fires that killed two women and sent a half dozen to the hospital. The fatal fires were two of a dozen reported across the city in the past 24 hours.
Denver started the New Year in the grip of record-low temperatures, pushing furnaces and fireplaces to the limit.
“Twelve fires, two of them causing the deaths of two people and possibly fatal injuries to five others, kept the Denver fire department busy from midnight Sunday until midnight last night. These brought the total of a dozen fires reported in the city in the last 24.
— Rocky Mountain News, Jan. 1, 1924
The fire department officials said last night that the excessive number of conflagrations, most of them causing little or no damage, was due to the sub-zero weather, which struck Denver Saturday night resulting in overheated furnaces and flues.”
The first fatal fire broke out shortly before 6 o’clock in an apartment house at 1305 Acoma. The second came an hour later in an apartment house at 2108 Tremont Place.
At the Tremont apartment, Beatrice Jones, 38, suffered mortal wounds when she leaped from a window onto an iron gate. She leaped from her second-story window to escape the flames. She was a teacher at Aaron Gove High School.
“Adding to the horror of the flames, was the terrific cold which gripped the city in the early morning. Roused from their beds by roaring flames, scores of residents of the two apartment houses fled in their night clothing and barefoot into the streets. The temperatures hovered around 13 degrees below zero.
— Rocky Mountain News, Jan. 1, 1924
At the Tremont apartment, two other women, including Skinner Junior High School teacher Mary Olson, suffered severe injuries. Olson sustained severe burns and “probably fatal” injuries as she leaped from her window. Saleswoman Evelyn Laureman suffered burns and injuries when she leaped from the Acoma Street porch.
Beatrice Duskey, 21, a telephone operator at the main exchange suffered a fractured right leg, internal injuries and burns after leaping from a third-story window.
Beatrice’s roommate, Ula Kramer, 28 was trapped inside the apartment. Earl Duskey attempted to rescue his fiance, but the fire cut him off from getting to his fiance. He reached the roof and tried to hold on for his life, but fell and was impaled on the sharp pickets of an iron fence. Reporters noted that he fought for survival, but physicians at the county hospital gave him no chance to live.
“Rescuers found his seared, mangled form upon the sidewalk.
‘Never mind me – tend to the girls. My God! Miss Kramer’s still in there on the third floor,’ he gasped.”
Once the fire was under control, firemen searched for Kramer, but they found her burned to a crisp on what charred remains of a bed.
Ula and Earl were engaged less than a year before the fire took their lives. Her parents moved from Cincinnati to Loveland. The News reported that the parents wanted them to stay overnight, concerned about the frigid temperatures.
Earl died a few days later from his wounds.
One noted hero was, John L. George, who was one of the first to help the fire victims. The 17-year-old was a telephone employee who ran to the blaze saw the victims leap from the apartment and helped drag them away from the falling embers.
The fires claimed another life when Myrtle Wheelock, who fractured both of her legs and suffered teal injuries and burns succumbed to her injuries a few days later, bringing the death count to four.