The La Crescenta Hotel Disaster of 1887, Part 3

Last week we heard of the collapse of the Crescenta Hotel just after midnight during a fierce windstorm in December 1887. Residents nearby heard the crash, saw the lights go out and came running with lanterns. Lantern light revealed the sight of a confused pile of twisted boards and broken plaster where the two-story hotel had been. Muffled cries came from the wreckage.

They immediately began to pull away broken boards, trying to reach the shouts for help. Mr. Arnold, the hotel’s manager, had been at the front door of the building when it collapsed. His family – his wife and two daughters – were back in their room. Mr. Arnold was unhurt, but trapped in an opening in the rubble. He could hear his 3-year-old daughter calling for him: “Papa, Papa, where are you!?” He called to the rescuers trying to lead them to his voice. Clawing their way down through the splintered wood, the rescuers reached Mr. Arnold first.

Freed from his trap, Mr. Arnold frantically searched for the location of his crying daughter, while other men assisted him. He finally pulled her from the wreckage, all cut-up and bruised. He then heard faintly the sound of his wife’s voice, muffled and choking. “Where is my baby?”

Her voice faded as Mr. Arnold frantically dug towards the sound. After two hours, Mr. Arnold and the other men found her. A beam lay across her throat and she was dead. Next to her was Mr. Arnold’s older daughter, also crushed lifeless.

Through the night, the men of the valley pulled the wreckage away and rescued several more of the hotel’s residents. Miraculously, they were injured but all still alive. The broken bodies of Mrs. Arnold and their 10-year-old daughter were carried away from the wreckage to a nearby house.

The morning light revealed the hotel completely demolished. The valley residents were aghast. Those who had been pulled from the wreckage were dazed and exhausted, but glad to be alive. The wind was still blowing at gale force. Mr. Arnold hired a wagon and with his surviving daughter left the scene. He had relatives in Los Angeles and he went there to grieve with them. The coroner would be transporting the bodies of his wife and other daughter back to Los Angeles. Newspapers sent reporters to record the tragedy and gather interviews with survivors and witnesses for publishing the next day (from which we glean the sad story today).

Everyone, even the owner of the hotel, admitted the hotel’s construction had been the cause of the tragedy. There is no mention of any lawsuits, although that doesn’t mean there weren’t. Contrary to popular myths built around “the good old days,” that era was just as litigious as today.

After the tragedy there was an exodus from the valley. Many of the newly-settled pioneers figured the weather of this valley was just too dangerous. Fires, floods, windstorms, lack of water and extreme heat were a high price to pay for the clean and rejuvenating air that the valley was famous for.

The hotel was rebuilt almost immediately, larger and grander than before. It was rebuilt in the same location as the previous hotel and opened sometime in 1888. It was solid redwood, three-stories, 36 large rooms, all with exterior balconies. The entrance would have been right where Foster’s Donuts is, facing Foothill.

It ranked as one of the grand resort hotels that Southern California was famous for. It hosted many famous people over the years but declined, ending in the ’40s and ’50s as a cheap flophouse. It was finally torn down in the ’60s, replaced with a shopping center.

Some dark night when the Santa Ana winds are blowing their fiercest, drive up to Foster’s Donuts. If you listen hard above the screaming of the wind, you might hear a child’s voice faintly calling, “Papa, where are you?” or a woman’s voice, strangled and choked, croaking out. “Where is my baby?” But it’s probably nothing … just a trick of the wind. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a ghostly reminder of a tragedy that took place long ago.

  mike lawler