I just found out that the hotel I’m staying at had the worst hotel fire in US History. I guess that’s why the ghost tour starts out front. :-/
Here is the Wikipedia Article:
Winecoff Hotel
The Winecoff Hotel, today the Ellis Hotel, is located at 176 Peachtree Street NW, in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Designed by William Lee Stoddart, the 15-story building opened in 1913.[1] It is located next to the former Macy’s (at 180 Peachtree Street), which was built as the flagship Davison’s, and just south from the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel (easily identifiable by its cylindrical glass design). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 31, 2009.
Fire
Historical marker
The Winecoff is best known for a fire that occurred there on December 7, 1946, in which 119 people died. It remains the deadliest hotel fire in U.S. history,[2] and prompted many changes in building codes. Guests at the hotel that night included teenagers attending a Tri-Y Youth Conference, Christmas shoppers, and people in town to see Song of the South. Arnold Hardy, a 26-year-old graduate student at Georgia Tech, became the first amateur to win a Pulitzer Prize in photography for his snapshot of a woman in mid-air after jumping from the 11th floor of the hotel during the fire.[3] The jumper, who survived, Daisy B. McCumber, was born October 9, 1905 and died in Florida on August 12, 1992 at the age of 86. From her jump she sustained a broken back, pelvis and both legs. Over a ten year period of time she underwent seven surgeries and lost a leg. Under these circumstances, she still worked until her retirement.
Reopenings
In April 1951, the hotel reopened as the Peachtree Hotel on Peachtree, and was now equipped with both fire alarms and fire escapes. In 1967, it was donated to the Georgia Baptist Convention for housing the elderly, and then repeatedly sold to a series of potential developers.
After over two decades of vacancy, a $23 million renovation project began in April 2006. The project restored the building into a boutique luxury hotel, called the Ellis Hotel after the street that runs along the north side of the building. It was reopened on October 1, 2007.
