WORT 89.9FM Madison · “Of The Embers” Tells Story Of Milwaukee Newhall House Fire

On January 10, 1883, at 4:00 in the morning, Milwaukee residents noticed flames in the windows of the fashionable Newhall House Hotel.  By the time the Milwaukee Fire Department arrived at the scene, the fire had consumed the roof, and firefighters could see people in the windows screaming for help.  Firefighters found their ladders entangled in the newly installed electrical wires downtown, and were unable to reach the upper floors of the building.  When all was said and done, 76 bodies were pulled from the wreckage, but because the hotel register was consumed in the fire, no one really knows how many people died that night.  It remained the deadliest hotel fire in the United States for decades.  In her new work of historical fiction, “Of the Embers,” author Rita Williams Atkinson chose to retell the story of the Newhall House fire through the eyes of those who lived through it.

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