The Hotel Kerns Fire

The Hotel Kerns was built in 1909 by William G. Kerns. The hotel cost $50,000 to build and was the first hotel in the state of Michigan that had running ice water in every one of its 162 rooms.

Located in the 100 block of N. Grand Ave., it's location and amenities, made the Kerns popular with legislators and community groups. In January of 1922 the women’s club Zonta held their first meeting at the Kerns. The Kerns also served as the bus station for the city of Lansing until 1932.

Known not only as a ‘fun place to stay’ because of the rollicking bar that was at the hotel, the Kerns also had a popular cafeteria where busy workers and travelers could stop by for a quick meal.

On December 11, 1934 a few minutes before 5am, "Pop" Hayhoe, “…night janitor of the State Journal, fifty feet north of the hotel across the dead end block of East Ottawa street, made his regular round through the editorial room of the newspaper's second floor, now empty of editors and reporters. Suddenly he stopped. A curl of flame licked up along some second floor window curtains on the hotel's north side, near the front. Before he could act the curl became a ravening sheet of flame. …Hayhoe wasted not an instant turning in the alarm. The Central fire station was only a block south of the hotel. His call completed, Hayhoe turned back. Window after window was ablaze. Now he could hear the screams of men and women, wakening to red horror!” From the State Journal.

Hotel residents forced by the raging flames leapt from the upper windows in to the deployed fire nets or were rescued by firemen who carried them down the ladders.

For two hours firemen battled to prevent the blaze from breaching the firewall of the Hotel Wentworth. One fireman, who was struck by a falling body, worked for eight hours with a broken back.

By 7:30 that morning the outer walls of the Hotel Kerns had collapsed and the fire was contained. Thirty-four people were killed in the fire. Five of the bodies were never identified.

The popular belief that people leapt from the Kerns and into the Grand River, was dispelled by Captain Hugh Fisher who was present at the fire and in 1959 stated that no bodies were ever found in the Grand River.

What caused the fire? A carelessly discarded cigarette.