Fire - Key City House 1864

LANNIGAN, ALDEN

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 6/7/2016 at 11:15:49

Dubuque Democratic Herald – Dec. 1, 1864

FIRE – There was considerable excitement yesterday about 8 o’clock a. m. in consequence of a slight configuration at the Key City House. There had been a festive occasion the night before among the servants of the hotel, extending into the “wee small hours,” and it is probable that one of the guests, more sleepy than others at the party, forgot to extinguish her light when she released herself from the arms of Morpheus. The consequence was the candle ignited clothing hanging near it, and thus communicated the flames to the ceiling and the floor. The fire was discovered by Mr. Alden, who reported immediately to the proprietors of the house, but failed for some time to convince them then anything out of the way was in progress. The alarm soon spread, and one excited, “South of Ireland man,” and he is familiarly known, stood for fifteen minutes on his head, and rung the bell at Protection No. 2, at least so he expressed it. The wild excitement at the hotel beggars description. A stranger, awakened from his slumber and remembering the parting injunction of the night previous, proceeded to “smile,” while a boarder frantically, with his unmentionables in one hand and a revolver in the other, to the street there to meet and charge upon raiders and rioters. The servant girls were bemoaning the loss of their Sunday clothes, and filling the air with lamentations. The promptness of the fire companies secured the safety of the Key City and adjoining, “And this was the end of Lannigan’s bell.”