The Gulf Hotel fire claimed 55 lives in the early-morning hours of September 7, 1943 in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States.
[4] Shortly after midnight, the desk clerk was alerted to a smoldering mattress and bed sheet in a room on the second floor, that was thought to have started due to careless smoking.
[5] The clerk and a few guests thought they had extinguished the burning mattress and moved it to a closet in the second floor hall.
There were two exits from the hotel, both on the Preston side, one an interior staircase, the other an exterior fire escape.
Blanchard, reportedly watched a naked man leap from the third floor of the hotel and then hit an awning before landing on the street.
[1] A mass funeral was held for 23 victims of the fire who were never identified and they were buried at the South Park Cemetery in Houston.