The country’s deadliest hotel fire prompted new national safety codes 10/19
Jump to… 19 things you didn’t know about Atlanta’s past Swimmers and boaters once flocked to a six-acre lake in Grant Park Atlanta was founded on sprawl—and hospitality W.E.B. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk at Atlanta University Zoo Atlanta was founded with animals from a defunct circus There’s a hidden cave in Chastain Park Little Richard and James Brown cut their teeth at the Royal Peacock Atlanta’s first celeb chef was the mother of modern Southern cooking Rich’s downtown hosted annual fashion shows that drew the likes of Pucci and Hubert de Givenchy Atlanta’s first talk radio station launched national voices The country’s deadliest hotel fire prompted new national safety codes Atlanta once had its own “Berlin Wall” Atlanta had its own version of Haight-Ashbury In the 1970s Atlantans hit the ski slopes in Vinings The Sex Pistols made its American debut in a Piedmont Road shopping center Pleasant Peasant brought casual fine dining to Atlanta Eastside Atlanta neighborhoods were almost split by an interstate The Kinks, Willie Nelson, and ZZ Top left their handprints on Peachtree Road Smokey and the Bandit II blew up Atlanta’s most famous roller coaster CNN Center was once the site of the world’s largest indoor amusement park
1946: Many used sheets to climb to higher floors, or jumped from windows in attempts to escape the blaze. Photograph by Keystone/Getty Images
Despite being dubbed “absolutely fireproof” when it was built in 1913, the Winecoff Hotel (now the Ellis Hotel) downtown had no sprinklers, fire escapes, or even alarms. In December 1946 an enormous fire engulfed the hotel, and 119 people died, including the elderly owners and 30 high school students from across the state who were in town for a mock government program. The tragedy was the final straw in a string of horrific blazes across the country, prompting President Truman to call a conference that led to the creation of modern-day fire safety codes.
10/19
Jump to… 19 things you didn’t know about Atlanta’s past Swimmers and boaters once flocked to a six-acre lake in Grant Park Atlanta was founded on sprawl—and hospitality W.E.B. Du Bois wrote The Souls of Black Folk at Atlanta University Zoo Atlanta was founded with animals from a defunct circus There’s a hidden cave in Chastain Park Little Richard and James Brown cut their teeth at the Royal Peacock Atlanta’s first celeb chef was the mother of modern Southern cooking Rich’s downtown hosted annual fashion shows that drew the likes of Pucci and Hubert de Givenchy Atlanta’s first talk radio station launched national voices The country’s deadliest hotel fire prompted new national safety codes Atlanta once had its own “Berlin Wall” Atlanta had its own version of Haight-Ashbury In the 1970s Atlantans hit the ski slopes in Vinings The Sex Pistols made its American debut in a Piedmont Road shopping center Pleasant Peasant brought casual fine dining to Atlanta Eastside Atlanta neighborhoods were almost split by an interstate The Kinks, Willie Nelson, and ZZ Top left their handprints on Peachtree Road Smokey and the Bandit II blew up Atlanta’s most famous roller coaster CNN Center was once the site of the world’s largest indoor amusement park
