Damn the Old Tinderbox!: Milwaukee's Palace of the West and the Fire That Defined an Era (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780870208812)

In the dead of an unassuming January night in 1883, Milwaukee's Newhall House hotel was set on fire. Two hours later, the building--once among the tallest in the nation--lay in ruins and over seventy people were dead. It was a tragedy that brought global notice to Milwaukee, with daring escapes and rescues and heart-wrenching tales of victims burned to death or killed as they leapt from the burning building. From the great horror emerged an even greater string of mysteries: Who had set the fire and who was to blame for the staggering loss of life? The Newhall's hard-luck barkeeper? A gentleman arsonist? What of the many other unexplained fires at the hotel? Had the Newhall's management neglected fire safety to boost their profits?

Damn the Old Tinderbox! is the gripping tale of one of the Gilded Age's forgotten calamities, a fire that remains among the deadliest unsolved arsons in American history, and a significant chapter in both the history of Milwaukee and the Midwest.

Author: Matthew J. Prigge
ISBN-10: 0870208810
ISBN-13: 9780870208812
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Language: English
Published: 03/18/2019
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.40w x 0.90d