STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - 1939

Photo: Museum of Northwest Colorado

On Jan. 24, 1939, fire devoured the 100-room Cabin Hotel in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, killing two people trapped in the flames.

All that was left of the three-story frame resort was "a skeleton of charred wood and ice," the Associated Press said.

Mayor Claude Luckens and others tried to gain access but were driven out by smoke, the Steamboat Pilot newspaper reported.

The battle was lost before firefighters could get water on the blaze, which started near a chimney leading to a furnace room in the 30-year-old hotel's south wing. The volunteer fire department, under the command of Chief Lavern Nelson, was very small, with just 10 or so members. 

Remains of Merle Sweet, 71, a Strawberry Park rancher, were found on the springs of his burnt bed, the Pilot newspaper.

The body of Mildred Keltner, 24, of Meade, Kansas, was located outside her room. She worked in Steamboat Springs.

The Pilot reported hotel manager C . P . Homer "rapped on doors and called to tenants to leave the building . Then he rang the buzzers in each occupied room . It was supposed that all had left the structure."

The hotel was owned by Routt County, having been seized for back taxes.