While researching Grandma’s cousins Clarence Rule and Howard Brown, our 1st cousins 2x removed, I found an interesting story from Colorado history: the 1945 Glenwood Hotel fire, which happened 79 years ago today. And Clarence Rule’s father-in-law, Charles McCarthy, was the unwitting hero of the tragedy.
The Hotel Glenwood first opened its doors in 1884, three years before the railroad arrived through Glenwood Canyon. At first it was a two-story wooden structure known as the Hotel Colorado, but two years later it was rebuilt in stone and renamed the Hotel Glenwood. The 75-room structure welcomed rich guests, such as Horace & Baby Doe Tabor, and down-on-their-luck patrons, like Doc Holliday. The famous gunslinger came to Glenwood Springs to treat his tuberculosis in the hot springs, but it didn’t work. On November 8, 1887, he sat up in his bed at the Glenwood Hotel and asked for a shot of whiskey. His nurse refused, and Holliday looked at his bare feet and proclaimed, “This is funny,” and died. He long claimed he expected to die in a shootout with his boots on. He was buried in the city’s Linwood Cemetery.
Charles Roche McCarthy arrived in Glenwood Springs about 15 years after Holliday departed. He was born in Minneapolis in 1878, grew up in St. Louis, but settled in Colorado. He married Frankie Comer on October 2, 1906, at a Catholic church in Glenwood Springs. They had two daughters: Elizabeth (1907), who married Clarence Rule; and Katherine (1911), who married Baltimore attorney H. Rank Bickel.
Charles McCarthy was a banker associated with the First National Bank of Glenwood Springs. I haven’t uncovered what he did for the institution—he is only listed as “banker” in documents I’ve seen—but he apparently did well for himself, as he became a business leader in the city. At some point in the 1920s or ’30s he purchased the Hotel Glenwood, which he owned at the time of the deadly fire of December 14, 1945. The story was reported in the Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colorado (12-14-45):
3 to 12 Persons Believed Dead in Fire Gutting Hotel at Glenwood
125 Guests Flee into Zero Weather; 7 Hurt in Effort to Escape when Trapped
Worst Fire in History of Glenwood Springs Starts Near Midnight in Basement of Adjoining Store but Cause Is Undetermined; Search Being Made of Ruins for Bodies; Three Known Missing and Others Believed to Have Perished
Glenwood Springs, Colo., Dec. 14—Fire swiftly destroyed the ancient Glenwood Hotel early today and authorities, starting a search in the icy ruins, estimated from three to 12 or more guests may have perished.
The hotel, built in 1886, was located at Seventh and Grand, a block south of the viaduct. It was a Glenwood landmark. . . .
Most of the guests on the second story escaped with only their night clothes or at the most with a few clothes snatched on the run.
Water was played on the ruins until noon. It was doubtful at that time whether the debris would be cooled off sufficiently at all today to permit crews to search for bodies. . . .
Telling how the flames engulfed the wood interior of the hotel, LaVerne Hart, 17, whose mother and two brothers were hurt, said:
“Someone on the second floor hollered fire. Mother got us all up. I was the first one up. She told me to get out. I ran for the stairs and came down before the stairs burned. My brothers went to the fire escape but had to turn back because of the smoke. They ran into the stairs but they were impassable. So all three of them jumped.”
Wait a second . . . “jumped”? Another story in the same paper explained—turns out that some jumped, and others were pushed:
Dramatic Story Told by Brothers Trapped in Fire
Five in Group Leap into Firemen’s Net in Narrow Escape
Glenwood Springs, Dec. 14 (AP)—Two boys told a dramatic story today of flames creeping closer to the room in which they and three other persons huddled during a fire which gutted the Glenwood Hotel early today.
Louis Rovedo, 26, an army first lieutenant on terminal leave and a veteran of Pacific service, said he and his wife Dorothy, 23, were in a room adjoining that of his brother Lawrence, 18.
The brothers said they heard someone shouting “Fire!” and that they immediately arose. All three hastily dressed, and Lawrence sought sanctuary in his brother’s room. Later Calvin Hart, 18, and an elderly man were found in the hotel hall by the Rovedos and persuaded to seek temporary safety in Louis Rovedo’s room.
As the flames crept closer to the room the five found their way to a small balcony from which, Louis Rovedo related, it was evident they would have to leap into a canvas net held by fireman below.
Louis said he tried to persuade his wife to jump, but that she cried, “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”
He induced his wife to climb on the balcony railing, Louis added, and then pushed her off. She fell safely into the net below. The other four followed her, with none suffering serious injuries.
So, who was the hero who shouted “Fire!” to wake the guests? According to a story in the Independent Record of Helena, Montana, it was Charles McCarthy! He not only owned the hotel, but also worked as a night manager:
Old Glenwood Springs Hotel Destroyed by Fire During Night
Searchers Probe for Bodies of Possible Victims
Glenwood Springs, Colo., Dec. 14 (AP)—A sudden, savage fire raged through the old Glenwood Hotel early this morning and officers feared that a search of its smoldering ruins would yield the bodies of several guests trapped in the upper floors. . . .
Starting in a department store on the ground floor, the fire spread so swiftly the hotel was a mass of flames before Manager CHARLES McCARTHY could give the alarm to his guests. Five persons leaped from third floor windows into firemen’s nets and J. E. SAMUELSON, a newspaper editor, said “others were yelling up there.” Those who leaped were taken to a hospital across the street for treatment of injuries.
Fire crews attacked the tottering walls of the hotel on three sides, clearing the way for a party that stood by to search the ruins for the bodies of possible victims. The front wall had collapsed into the main street of this town of 3,000 population.
A guest in the four-story brick structure, built in 1886, complained about midnight that he smelled smoke. McCARTHY said he searched the hotel and finally looked over a transom into the department store and saw a fire. Almost immediately, he said, the building was an inferno and guests on the upper floors were trapped. He ran up as far as the second floor and “yelled at the people to get out,” but could go no higher. The hotel register burned, preventing an immediate check on the guests. . . .
Firemen fought the blaze in near-zero weather. Almost the entire population of the town turned out but the terrific heat kept them a half-block away from the site.
McCarthy died seven years later on October 19, 1952, as reported in the Daily Sentinel on October 20:
Charles R. McCarthy, Well Known Glenwood Resident, Dies Sunday
Glenwood Springs—Charles R. McCarthy, one of the best known citizens of Glenwood Springs, died at a local hospital Sunday afternoon. He had been in failing health for the past several years.
The deceased was born May 13, 1878, in Minneapolis, Minn., and spent his childhood in St. Louis, coming to Glenwood Springs 46 years ago. He was a graduate of St. Louis High School and attended Notre Dame University.
He married Frankie Comer Oct. 2, 1906, in Glenwood Springs.
Surviving are the widow and two daughters, Mrs. Elizabeth Rule, Denver, and Mrs. Katherine Bickel, Lebanon, Pa.
Mr. McCarthy was a retired banker, a member of the Elks Lodge, Knights of Columbus, and Fraternal Order of Eagles. He has been engaged in many investment businesses in Glenwood Springs and was the owner of the old Glenwood Hotel which was destroyed by fire six years ago.
Charles McCarthy was buried in Glenwood Springs’s Rosebud Cemetery. Frankie lived until 1971, when she was killed in a car crash near Carbondale. She was buried by Charles’s side. Both Clarence & Elizabeth (McCarthy) Rule are also there, as is Clarence’s father/Anna’s husband Arthur Sherman Rule, and his parents, Civil War veteran Alexander Francis Rule and wife Harriet Elvira (Morrow) Rule. I’ll leave their story for another time.
Today, the Doc Holliday Saloon stands on the site of former Hotel Glenwood. Stop in and raise a glass to Glenwood Springs hero Charles McCarthy!
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