Railway & Main: Small-Town Saskatchewan Hotels: Catastrophe at the Macoun Hotel

This is an expanded version of an earlier post on this blog. Click here for Hotel Fires.

Macoun's hotel was built in 1905 by Len Youngberg. Source

Macoun Hotel, c. 1910. Source

Six weeks after purchasing the hotel at Macoun and getting his family settled within, Carl Hochhaus left town to see to matters on his Alberta homestead. He could never have imagined that when he returned home, he would find his hotel a smouldering mass of ashes with many dead inside, including his wife Gertrude and 23-year-old daughter Emma.

On April 20, 1914, one of the most tragic hotel fires in Saskatchewan’s history occurred at Macoun, located 28 kilometres northwest of Estevan. Eleven people (some accounts say thirteen) lost their lives as a result of the disaster and many more were injured, including three Hochhaus children, Gertrude, Carl Jr., and Bernard.

The Explosion

At lunchtime on that fateful April day, thirty people were inside the Macoun Hotel. Some were Hockhaus family members, some were staff members, others were hotel guests. Many were sitting down for lunch, and the hotel dining room was full.

James Towey, a ten-year-old witness of the explosion, provides his account in Plowshares to Pumpjacks: R.M. of Cymri: Macoun, Midale, Halbrite, (1984). Shortly after noon, Carl Hochhaus, Jr. smelled gas and decided to go down to the basement to investigate. “He had a lighted cigar in his mouth as he descended the stairs and opened the door to the basement,” Towey recounts. “Immediately there was an explosion which lifted the entire structure approximately thirty feet in the air, then the building dropped back down into the basement.”

The bank and drug store (seen from rear) were still standing after the fire, but the hotel, meat market, telephone office and a private house were destroyed. Source

Carl was blown several feet through a doorway on to the street and survived with only a few bruises, singed hair and eyebrows. Everyone caught in the conflagration was injured, perished in the fire, or died later as a result of their injuries.

The hotel’s dining room was located directly above an acetylene light plant in the basement. The explosion caused the entire dining room to collapse into the cellar below. Wreckage from the walls and floors above fell on top of the diners and then caught fire. All of the people who were in the dining room at the time of the explosion were killed.

The Victims

Headline in the Saskatoon Daily Star, April 21, 1914.

In addition to the two Hochhaus family members, those killed in the Macoun hotel explosion were: four telephone workers, Daniel Egan from Moose Jaw, Harold George Clark from Estevan, Thomas Drake from Pipestone, Manitoba, and Peter Joyner from Estevan; Joseph E. Grant, carpenter from Macoun; James Dunger, buyer for International Elevator Company of Manitoba; and three members of the hotel staff, Clifford VanDer, hotel clerk from Vancouver, Ferdinand Schmidt, hotel bartender from Alberta, and Stella Peterson, hotel cook from Macoun.

Stella Peterson, the hotel’s young Icelandic cook, was terribly injured in the explosion. The building collapse caused her to be pinned in the kitchen for some time before she was rescued. Miss Peterson, the sole wage earner for her widowed mother and younger brothers and sisters, died in Winnipeg General Hospital on June 16^th after weeks of suffering.

Bernard Hochhaus and his dog, Bismarck. From Plowshares to Pumpjacks

The most talked about incident in connection with the hotel explosion was, according to the Regina Leader-Post, the “miraculous escape” of Hochhaus’ youngest son, Bernard. The eight-year-old was playing with his dog, a large collie named Bismarck, in the lobby of the hotel when the explosion catapulted the two right out the door. Covered by debris, the collie dug its way into the open air but would not leave without little Bernard. “That the boy did not perish also,” the paper wrote on April 23, “is attributed by everyone to the dog.”

The day after the explosion, trains brought throngs of curious people to Macoun. The Leader-Post reported that visitors "formed a moving circle around the charred ruins of the wrecked building, watching silently the men of the Mounted Police, their red coats blackened and torn, delve into the debris, seeking those who were lost in the holocaust." Most remains were charred beyond recognition.

Crowds viewing the aftermath of the Macoun explosion, April 1914. Source

Acetylene Gas Regulations Needed

Small acetylene gas plants were one of the best lighting options in Saskatchewan in places where electric light was not yet attainable. But, after the Macoun disaster, there were calls for change. Saskatchewan’s fire commissioner, R. J. McLean, immediately appealed for safety measures in the installation of acetylene gas works in any home or public building. Acetylene gas can “do more harm than dynamite,” he stated, cautioning that no generators should be permitted in basements.

One type of acetylene gas plant, storage tank in centre, generator on right. Source

The Saskatoon Daily Star felt that more than warnings from the fire commissioner was needed. “One acetylene gas plant to one frame hotel equals one death trap,” an editorial stated on April 24. The newspaper advocated for laws requiring that gas plants be housed in separate buildings a safe distance away from inhabited buildings. The arrival of electricity in villages and towns during the 1920s, however, spelled the end of gas lighting in the province.