From the Kansas City Public Library:
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January 28, 1978: Flames engulf the Coates House Hotel, destroying much of the building and causing the worst loss of life by fire in Kansas City history.
At about 4:00 a.m. on January 28, 1978, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Coates House Hotel on Quality Hill near downtown Kansas City, Missouri. By the time that the fire was controlled around 8:00 a.m., the south part of the historic building was nearly destroyed and 20 people had died. After the ashes settled, the overriding question facing the city was whether the historic hotel would be demolished or restored and revitalized.
Kersey Coates, the builder and namesake of the hotel, was an important civic leader in Kansas City's early history. He came to Kansas City in 1854 and worked as a land developer, railroad promoter, served as colonel in a pro-Union militia unit, and was a founder of the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. His most significant work in land development was the Quality Hill area. He started the development by building the opulent Broadway Hotel and Coates Opera House in what was little more than a pasture, at the present-day corner of 10th and Broadway.
Construction began on the Broadway Hotel (later renamed the Coates House Hotel) after designs were completed in 1857, but work halted when the Civil War began. The Union army boarded over the open foundation and used the site as a cavalry barracks as a part of the Camp Union garrison. Following the war, construction was finally completed in 1868, and a luxurious neighborhood for the wealthy grew up around the opera house and the hotel.
Through the early 20th century, the Coates House Hotel remained among the most prestigious and luxurious in Kansas City, and its facilities served as an important public gathering place for parties, meetings, and dances. After an extensive remodel in the late 1880s, it contained a diner, a florist shop, a fine bonnet shop, and Turkish baths. Among its many famous guests were Presidents Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt; Edwin Booth (brother of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth); and three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
By the 1970s, however, the Coates House Hotel had lost much of its luster. Population movements out of downtown and into the suburbs after World War II left the Quality Hill area depleted in population and wealth. While it was still in business, the hotel was far past its physical and social prime. It served primarily as a short-term apartment complex for transients who paid a weekly rate of $12.
The hotel's recent decline, however, did not diminish the scale of loss from the fire in 1978. On January 28, at 4:00 a.m., a fire broke out on one of the upper floors of the south side of the building. The four-alarm fire spread quickly, giving residents little time to react. With temperatures hovering around five degrees, they fled the building with little more than their pajamas. When the conflagration was finally brought under control, the Salvation Army offered temporary housing to over 100 residents that were left homeless. Twenty residents perished in the inferno. Several of these victims chose to jump from the fifth or sixth floors of the building rather than face the flames. Measured by loss of life, it was the worst fire in Kansas City history.
Many area residents assumed that the remains of the Coates House Hotel would be razed to the ground, even though the south section of the building was mostly intact. Instead, the hotel was rebuilt and the Quality Hill area was revitalized. The Historic Kansas City Foundation (HKCF), a local organization that advocates for historic preservation, purchased the building in July, 1979 to prevent its destruction until a buyer could be found that would restore the building. In 1984, the McCormack Baron Salazar company purchased the hotel from HKCF and rebuilt it. The company also redeveloped much of the rest of the Quality Hill area. Today the Coates House Hotel serves as luxury apartments and condominiums. The revitalization of the Coates House Hotel does not undo the tragedy of the 1978 fire, but it has preserved an important architectural piece of Kansas City history.
From Wikipedia:
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On January 28, 1978, a fire broke out in the six-story Coates House Hotel at 1005 Broadway in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, killing 20 people and injuring at least six. It is the worst fire disaster in the history of Kansas City.
The hotel was originally built in 1867 and over the years Presidents William McKinley, Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt stayed there. The hotel was thus listed as a historic site and became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The fire broke out around 4 a.m. and the Kansas City, Missouri Fire department was alerted at 4:12 a.m. by the Coates House desk clerk. The initial response by the fire department was three pumpers (engine companies), two trucks (ladder companies) and a battalion chief. The station of the first companies due at the scene was only 100 feet down an alley to the southeast of the Coates House, yet they saw no smoke or fire when they arrived about two minutes later. Other companies arriving from the south on Broadway saw smoke emitting from a few upper story windows of the hotel.
At 4:17 a.m.- Battalion Chief 102 requests a second alarm, and 3 more pumpers and one truck company are assigned. By that time, occupants of the building began leaning and climbing out of upper floor windows. Ladder company Truck 6 tries to extend the aerial ladder of their 25-year-old-plus truck when it froze barely a dozen feet in the air. Some of the hotel's occupants began to jump from the choking smoke and intense heat.
At least five of the fire's fatalities were jumpers as the meager first-response fire department manpower was overwhelmed by both rescues and firefighting.
At 4:22 a.m.- a third alarm is sounded, three more pumpers and another truck company respond. Over about the next 10 minutes, one each additional pumper and truck companies are dispatched to the fire. At 4:33 a.m.- a fourth alarm is sounded and three more pumper companies respond.
Four additional companies, including the Kansas City, KS Fire department, are piece-mealed into the fire over the next 30 minutes.
At the height of the fire, 23 fire trucks and at least 90 firemen were on the scene- more than three-quarters of all available on-duty Kansas City MO fire companies, and the fire took more than four hours to bring under control.
The Coates House Hotel before this January night was an about one-third city block long and about one-quarter block deep, U-shaped building. That part of the south leg of the U was on fire.
The fire reduced that portion of the Coates House Hotel to nothing more than a charred frame and later had to be demolished by wrecking crews (the front and north part of the U are occupied by offices today).
Over 100 of the survivors were taken by bus to the Salvation Army Center in the southeast of the downtown Kansas City area; the Salvation Army raised $4000 to help the victims of the disaster.
My commentary:
As a result of this fire, major businesses have invested in the area and have revitalized the entire Garment District - Quality Hill area. The fire also modernized and strengthened the entire Fire Department. This fire is one of those events that affected the entire Kansas City area.