Flophouse fire was the deadliest hotel blaze in all of Texas history

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inutes after midnight on Sept. 7, 1943, a fire broke out in a fleabag hotel a couple of blocks from the bus station in downtown Houston.

The Gulf Hotel was a residence of last resort for the old, the infirm and the able-bodied who had come to Houston to look for work during the Second World War. Located on the corner of Louisiana and Preston in a seedy section of the central business district, the flophouse filled the second and third floors of a three-story building that had seen better days.