Category:Lafayette Hotel, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Originally built in 1809 as the "Black Horse Tavern", it was one of the first hotels in the city. Its heyday was in the Victorian era as a simple place, popular with farmers and traveling salesmen. In a burst of entrepreneurial enthusiasm for the Lafayette's 100th anniversary in 1909, the hotel's owners, brothers Elmer and George Guth, added two stories to the three story building. The Guth's sold the hotel in 1924 to Louis Genovese and W.D. Cassone.

On January 23rd, 1926, the hotel caught fire when a guest threw a smouldering cigarette butt down a wooden clothing chute. The butt caught fire and the building caught fire between its walls starting in the basement. The fire broke out of the walls and smoke began pouring into the lobby. It burned upwards, trapping the hotel's guests in their upstairs room, causing some to jump out of their fourth and fifth floor rooms, and others were hanging from their window ledges outside of the building. Some were rescued by hook and ladder fire trucks and several fell off the ladder which as covered in ice. The fire caused thirteen deaths and injured thirty-nine others, some of them with wounds so severe they never really recovered. It is still the most deadly fire in the City's history.