Fire destroys historic hotel in Cairo

CAIRO, Ill. -- A historic hotel in downtown Cairo was destroyed by a fire that broke out around midnight Tuesday.

The Cairo Fire Department, with five other Alexander County departments, fought the blaze at Hotel Roslyn on Washington Street until around 5 a.m. Wednesday.

"Originally there was light smoke showing, and then it just escalated from there," a Cairo firefighter said Wednesday. "The building is a total loss."

Hotel Roslyn, just nine blocks from the Cairo fire station, dates back to the 1940s and was owned and operated at one time by Roslyn Waite, who died in 1995.

The state fire marshal arrived on scene early Wednesday morning and had left already by 1 p.m.

A captain at the fire station said the fire marshal didn't determine a cause of the fire.