Q: What is the story behind the Potter Hotel fire?

The opening of the Potter Hotel off West Beach in 1903 was a
milestone in Santa Barbara tourism. The Potter soon eclipsed the
Arlington Hotel as the top hostelry in the city and in a short
time, wealthy industrialists from the Midwest and East Coast were
choosing to spend their winters within the opulent confines of the
Potter.

The hotel, with almost 600 guest rooms, was truly magnificent.
The impeccably groomed grounds boasted a zoo and a rose garden with
thousands of bushes. The dining room’s offerings were made with the
freshest meats and produce from the hotel’s own farms. The Potter
had all the amenities, including a ballroom, billiard rooms, a
bowling alley, lounges, and gift shops. For the more actively
inclined there was the Potter Country Club in Hope Ranch for golf,
trap shooting, horseback riding, tennis, and other pursuits. The
Potter Theatre on State Street offered concerts, vaudeville, plays,
and films. The hotel came to enjoy a reputation international in
scope.

Milo Potter sold the hotel in 1919 and it became the Belvedere.
The following year, it became part of the Ambassador chain and was
rechristened the Ambassador. Then came the afternoon of April 13,
1921.

At about 3:15 p.m., two hotel employees heard a roaring sound
coming from an airshaft. Investigation revealed a fast-moving fire.
At about the same moment, the hotel’s alarm system activated,
warning guests of the danger and summoning the hotel’s fire brigade
to action. It was not long before city firefighters were also
rushing to the scene.

Within 30 minutes, it was apparent that the hotel’s main
building was doomed. Winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour whipped
the flames into what one newspaper called “a roaring volcano” and
the intense heat forced firefighters to keep their distance. As
Adrian Cooley of the fire department said at the time, “All the
fire-fighting equipment in New York City would not have been able
to save the hotel.”

One hour after the alarm had sounded, the roof of the main
building collapsed and by six that evening, only smoldering
wreckage and a few chimneys were left of what had been one of the
finest hotels on the West Coast. Firefighters spent much of the
night containing outbreaks in the ruins and securing the surviving
outbuildings from danger, such as the power plant, laundry, and
greenhouses. Windblown cinders and sparks caused serious concern;
the canvas tops of nearby automobiles proved to be at risk. There
was a scare around 10 p.m., when sparks touched off a fire on
Stearns Wharf, but this was extinguished fairly quickly.

Sunrise revealed an almost total loss — the $2 million structure
had sustained $1.5 million in damage. Amazingly, among the 140
guests and almost 300 staff there were no deaths or serious
injuries. This was due in part to a number of individual heroic
acts. The hotel telephone operator remained at the switchboard
calling guests until the rain of burning embers forced her
evacuation. Bellhops and a contingent from the local American
Legion risked their lives conducting room-to-room searches for
people. Boy Scouts were enlisted to keep the thousands of onlookers
from getting too close to the inferno and from interfering with
firefighters.

The majority of guests escaped with only the clothes on their
backs. One man offered $1,000 to anyone who would brave the flames
to retrieve his possessions. There were no takers. Another man,
awakened from his nap, fled the hotel clad only in a kimono. One
onlooker seemed especially upset at what was unfolding before him,
tears coursing down his cheeks. As his knees began to buckle, Milo
Potter was led away from the scene by friends. The cause of the
fire remains a mystery to this day; suspicions of arson were never
confirmed. The Potter Hotel, which had dominated Santa Barbara’s
waterfront and economy for 18 years, was never rebuilt.

Michael Redmon, director of
research at the Santa Barbara Historical Society, will answer your
questions about Santa Barbara’s history. Write him c/o The
Independent, 122 West Figueroa St., Santa Barbara, CA
93101.