After the fire
Photos by Josh McDonald The McConnell Hotel once stood in the location. Now it is just a basement foundation full of bricks following Friday morning’s demolition.
The south wall of the McConnell Hotel is brought down by crews on Friday morning after a fire gutted the interior of the historic building earlier in the week.
Imagine that it's any other day.
You are at your regular job, when you begin to not feel well.
You make the choice to finally head home and as you step outside you notice that the air is smokier than usual, which is probably why you aren’t feeling well.
You know that the air is smoky due to fires burning around your area and you’ve seen on social media that a fire had just occurred in the town down the road.
You get in your car to head home and as you pull out of the parking lot, you notice there is also smoke coming from a building just a few blocks away.
As you drive closer and closer, you begin to realize that the smoke is coming from another fire inside one of the biggest and most historic buildings in the city and that you just happen to own.
Now, you are helplessly watching as firefighters try to put out the blaze that has engulfed the entire building.
Forgetting the fact you don’t feel well, you are now running on pure adrenaline, but there is nothing you can do to get rid of it.
That was last Tuesday in a nutshell for Ellie Seiferd.
Ellie and her husband Guy were the owners of the McConnell Hotel.
“We’re just putting one foot in front of the other at this point,” Ellie said. “We’re really thankful no one was seriously hurt.”
The Seiferds had owned the building for a year and a half prior to the fire and were planning on transitioning the building into a place they could live in among other things.
“The McConnell was totally an emotional purchase for us,” Ellie said. “We always loved that building, it had so much character and was just a beautiful building.”
The investigation is still continuing to see what caused the blaze and the owners are not looking to speculate on what happened.
Ellie also wanted to reaffirm the fact that despite the catastrophe, her and her husband are not planning on selling the property.
“We haven’t really had a chance to talk, but we aren’t planning to sell it,” Ellie said.
On Friday morning, construction crews armed with several pieces of heavy machinery brought down the remaining walls and piled up the brick and debris in a show that was equal parts amazing as it was emotional.
During the live broadcast on the Shoshone News-Press Facebook page, online spectators commented at how sad they were to see the building go.
As soon as the area was opened up, it was swarmed with local residents trying to see into the hole that used to be the basement or snag a few of the bricks (which is not allowed, as the fire is still under investigation).
That was the magnitude of the fire on the community.
Overall, Ellie is just thankful for the first responders and emergency crews for how quickly they responded.
“It was one of those things that was amazing to watch,” Ellie said. “It’s amazing to see a fire like this until you’re the owner, but the crews were so quick to get control of the situation and did a good job making sure that everyone was safe. I’m so thankful for them and the great job they did.”