The day Fargo's grandest hotel became a deadly ice palace

Dec. 13—FARGO — If photos can cause tangible physical reactions in the body, no doubt the dozens of images of the Earle Hotel fire from the North Dakota State University Archives would chill you to the bone.

The fire on Dec. 13, 1951, turned Fargo's grandest hotel, once called "the finest hotel between the Twin Cities and the Pacific Coast," into an eerie ice castle fit for Queen Elsa herself.

The lobby, which had once welcomed presidents, celebrities, and titans of business, was now deserted — its furniture and ornate fixtures now encased in a frigid blanket of ice.

The loss of life was the greatest tragedy of the Earle Hotel fire, of course, but it was also the day the city said goodbye to an important relic of its past.

The Earle Hotel at 700 Front Street (now Main Avenue) across from the DeLendrecies building and the Northern Pacific Railway Depot was among the most established lots in town.

It was built in 1898-99, as the Waldorf Hotel, on the site of the old pioneer Sherman Hotel, which was also destroyed by fire. Previously, the site had been the location of underground stables for the horses of Gen. Thomas L. Rosser when he established "Fargo on the Prairie" in 1871.

An opening night banquet on April 12, 1899, was the height of elegance and grandeur with uniformed waiters and waitresses serving dinner as they marched in formation to the music. The one drawback? It was so popular that the 500 guests had to be served in shifts between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.

There is some dispute about how many rooms were in the hotel. Some reports say as few as 108, others say 136. But there is no dispute that they were some of the finest rooms in Fargo-Moorhead — 40 suites with baths and 65 rooms with hot and cold water.

It was the first hotel in North Dakota with an "electric elevator." Many of the rooms had mahogany and bird's-eye maple furniture.

According to the Evening Edition of The Forum from Dec. 13, 1951, the first fire alarm sounded at 7:09 a.m. that morning.

"When firemen arrived flames were shooting from four windows on the third floor of the north side of the structure facing Front Street. The fire drove guests to the street, most of them wearing only the clothing they could throw on their backs. Many wore coats covering their night apparel. Many wore bedroom slippers."

Almost immediately, the fire department knew this was going to be very bad. The hotel was at near capacity, with 136 guests needing to get out.

All Fargo units were dispatched to help. Moorhead also sent equipment and was on standby to cover any other calls that morning in Fargo.

Two hours into fighting the fire in temperatures around 13 below zero, at least one firefighter, Al Kramer, was taken to the hospital for exhaustion.

At one point, fire crews had to back away from the building as the brick walls were crashing down around them exposing the rooms inside. Onlookers could now see how thousands of gallons of water had turned everything left inside into ice sculptures. While outside, the street had become like a skating rink — a frigid, eerie, and dangerous scene.

The night elevator operator, John Erickson, was there when the fire started. His mind turned to one thing.

"I was off duty and in the lobby when the alarm sounded and the first thing I thought about was the woman in 330. She was crippled and I knew it," Erickson said.

Erickson said he dashed up to the third floor, but couldn't reach the woman's room because of smoke and fire in the hall.

"The fire was so bad I couldn't get to it so I knocked on some doors and kicked in a couple when they wouldn't answer. Then I got out of there," he said.

Later reports would call that area of the third floor "Death Corner" as it was where the fire was believed to have started and where two of the three people killed were staying.

One of them was the handicapped woman in room 330 Erickson had tried to save, 80-year-old retired teacher Catherine Morton. Also dead was W.S. Hooper, 79, a former Fargo Postmaster who was in Room 326. A young couple staying in Room 328 between Morton and Hooper, Marvin and Lorrine Wangerin, managed to escape. The other person who died was Mrs. J.H. Sampson, who occupied a room on the other side of the third floor.

As devastating as the loss of life was at the Earle, it could have been far worse had it not been for the bravery of the man who came to be known as "The one-armed hero."

Ernest Hickman, a 37-year-old welder from Osage, Minnesota, is credited with saving an estimated 50 lives by rousing guests on the top three floors of the hotel, risking his own life.

Hickman, also a guest at the hotel, told The Forum shortly after the fire that he had trouble sleeping that night.

"I woke up about 5 a.m. and I had a premonition of disaster. I couldn't go back to sleep," he said.

He went to the nearby Pacific Cafe for an early breakfast, but soon returned to his room where he smelled "something like burning rags."

He ran into the hall where someone yelled "Fire!" Then he went up and down the hallways of the third, fourth, and fifth floors banging on doors waking people up.

"Finally it got so bad, I couldn't stand it. I went back to my room and got my money, but I had to leave my artificial arm, my welding equipment and all my belongings," Hickman said.

The Forum was full of interviews with people who heralded Hickman as a genuine hero.

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him," said Ray Dalbec of Wing, North Dakota, as he sipped Red Cross coffee.

Bellboy John Wheaton, who lived on the fourth floor of the hotel, agreed, "That's right. I heard him pounding on my door and he kept yelling 'The house is on fire!' He sure did a good job of waking everyone."

Hickman was humble in accepting the praise and wasn't dwelling on what he lost.

"I don't mind losing the stuff so long as the people got out. As far as the arm goes, I think the Minnesota Vocational Rehabilitation Service will replace that," he said.

The hours and even days that followed the fire were chaotic. People had run down the stairs of the hotel in their pajamas and slippers. They huddled together in the bitter temperatures speculating on who got out and who didn't. Many people who had been unaccounted for were found safe. Those who were injured recovered.

Survivors were eventually sheltered in the warmth of the Northern Pacific Depot across the street, and later the Red Cross set up disaster headquarters in the Avalon Ballroom at 13 Broadway to assist with meals, clothing, and monetary donations.

The images coming from the fire that morning were breathtaking — the stark contrast of the intense flames burning in the bitter cold and the icy landscape it all left behind.

Former Forum history columnist Andrea Hunter Halgrimson noted in 2004 that the fire made national and international headlines.

"Aerial photos show smoke rising 1,800 feet and billowing over the city. Several weeks after the fire, Fargo Realtor Harry R. Arneson Jr. received a picture of the plume that had appeared in a newspaper in Luxembourg. It was sent to him by friends Arneson had met during his World War II service."

Halgrimson was a little girl in 1951 and never forgot seeing what had happened to the elegant hotel where countless dances were held and Teddy Roosevelt once spoke from the balcony.

"What I remember best is seeing the hotel a few days after the fire, sheathed in a ghostly coating of ice. To a child of 11, it was a memorable and frightening sight," she wrote.

The Earle Hotel never recovered. This was the second fire it had had that year. The damages exceeded $225,000 and the building was torn down.

New buildings were soon constructed on the lot where the Earle Hotel once stood. Businesses have come and gone on that corner, but nothing quite as grand as what was lost on Dec. 13, 1951.