On Feb. 10, 1902, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported a disaster in its city. A fire had swept through the Empire Hotel, causing $25,000 worth of damage, an amount near $15.7 million in today’s dollars, using a measure of economic power that compares the value of an individual property to the total output of the economy.
More tragically, the fire killed 11 people in a disaster noted as the second “worst loss of life ever recorded in St. Louis.” The three-story Empire Hotel, located at 2700-2702 Olive St., had once been “one of the worst of the questionable resorts in the city.” At the time of the fire it had gained a small measure of respectability and was operating as a “bachelor apartment” building.
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