Site of the Hotel Kerns Fire - Lansing, MI
N 42° 44.063 W 084° 33.008
16T E 700548 N 4734229
Site of the Hotel Kerns Fire which killed 34 people during the night of December 11, 1934 in Lansing, Michigan.
Waymark Code: WM18MBK
Location: Michigan, United States
Date Posted: 08/22/2023
Views: 1
8. The SITE OF THE HOTEL KERNS FIRE, 112-120 N. Grand Ave., is now a parking lot. The old Hotel Kerns was destroyed in December 1934, and more than a score of people, including a number of legislators, lost their lives. During the disaster, several guests who were trapped in their rooms jumped from the windows into the Grand River that flowed below.-Michigan: A Guide to the Wolverine State 1941
The famed fire happened 7 years before the publishing of the Michigan guide. From
Wikipedia: The Kerns Hotel fire of December 11, 1934, in Lansing, Michigan, United States, killed 34 people, including seven Michigan state legislators, and according to the Lansing Fire Department, was the worst fire disaster in the history of Lansing. The fire occurred around 5:30 am and spread rapidly through the building's wooden interior, trapping many of the hotel's 215 guests in their rooms and forcing them to escape via fire ladders or life nets. In addition to the fatalities, 42 more people, including fourteen firemen, were injured in the fire, which was thought to have been caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette.