Burned Down Stockton Hotel Sat Abandoned For Years, Attracted Transients' Trash
STOCKTON (CSB13) — A historic Stockton hotel that's sat abandoned for years went up in flames on Wednesday.
The fire burned for hours, tearing through the old brick Earle Hotel on East Main Street.
The hotel was once a symbol of a thriving downtown. The plan was to turn the rundown hotel into a parking lot. The city shut it down in 2001, evicting tenants over hundreds of code violations and a bat infestation.
In the past 13 years, the city has faced the one-two punch of a recession and the state pulling redevelopment funds. Like many abandoned buildings in downtown Sacramento, the building just sat, too pricey for the city to tear down or renovate.
The Earle isn't the only trouble spot for the city. Earlier this week, the city announced plans to sell three hotels its held in hopes someone will put forward the money to renovate the properties.
In the end, it wasn't a bulldozer that brought down the Earle, but a fire that spelled the end for a building that's stood since 1914.
The smoke from Wednesday's fire spread from what was once called the Sutter Hotel across downtown Stockton.
People working nearby were warned the pressure from fire hoses could bring the entire building down. An estimated 1 million gallons of water were used on the blaze.
Louie's Market owner Jason Louie says it was his customer who first saw the smoke and called 911. The property's been a concern of his for years.
"I talked to some of the guys that work on it, keeping these buildings kind of closed up, and it's always part of the concern that people are going to get in there," he said.
Firefighters who managed to get inside the building before it grew out of control say the building was filled with debris and trash from transients.
