Lest We Forget: Chicago's Awful Theater Horror

"Then came a volume of smoke, and far in the rear of the crowd we could see the illumination from the flames. I had a number of small tools in my pocket, and immediately proceeded to remove the metal attachments which held the door in place. This was accomplished with some difficulty, and then we managed to force the crowd back probably an inch, but that was sufficient. The door was then permitted to drop from its place, and one by one the imprisoned players were assisted into the alley.

"They were then in scanty costumes, but were quickly assisted to places of shelter. Even when the last player and stage hand had reached the alley we could not realize the awfulness of what had happened. I walked in upon the stage and found it a seething furnace. The players had been rescued just in time. A minute later and the flames and smoke would have reached the imperiled ones, and they would have been suffocated or burned where they stood."

THE PILES OF DEAD IN THE GALLERY

William ("Smiling") Corbett was one of the first to penetrate the smoke and reach the balcony and gallery of the theater where the most fearful loss of life occurred. Charley Dexter, the Boston National league player, and Frank Houseman, the old Chicago second baseman, went to his assistance.

Corbett was stopped by a fear-frenzied little woman, who begged him to save her two children.

"They're up in the gallery," she cried.

Corbett made a dash for the balcony entrance on the right.

"Don't go up there," admonished some of the firemen about; "you'll get hemmed in."

Corbett groped his way onward and upward, stumbling over bodies lying prostrate on the staircase, and finally reached the gallery entrance.

"There they were," said Corbett afterward. "Positively the most sickening spectacle I ever saw. They were piled up in bunches, in all manner of disarray. I grabbed for the topmost body, a girl about 6 years old. Catching her by the wrist I felt the flesh curl up under my grasp. I hurried down with the little one, then back again, each time with the body of a child.

"I then realized that no good could come of any further effort. Everybody was stark dead. I turned away and fled. I never again want to go near the place."

EDDIE FOY'S HEROISM

Eddie Foy, leading comedian in "Mr. Bluebeard," said:

"I was in my dressing room, one tier up off the stage, when I smelled smoke. The 'Moonlight ballet' was on, and it was three minutes before the time for my entrance on the first scene of the second act.

"I looked up and immediately over me, in the left first entrance, I saw sparks and a small cloud of smoke. The members of the company and of the chorus had already started off the stage. My eldest boy, Bryan, was standing under the light bridge in the first entrance, and, taking him by the hand, I turned him over to one of the stage hands with orders to get him out of the theater. In less time than it takes to tell it, the little wreath of smoke and the tiny sparks had grown in volume. The smoke and some of the sparks had already made their way into the main part of the house, curling down and around the lower edge of the proscenium arch.

"I looked at the house through an opening, and that was enough. I tried to appear as calm as possible under the conditions, realizing what a stampede would mean. Just what I said I cannot for the life of me now recall. In effect, though, this is about it:

"'Ladies and gentlemen, there is no danger. Don't get excited. Walk out calmly.'

"Between each breath, and these were coming in short, sharp gasps, I kept yelling out from the corner of my lips: 'Lower that iron curtain; drop the fire curtain!'

"The balcony and gallery were packed with women and children, and fully aware of what was in store for these hapless ones, my heart sank.

"The cracking of the timbers above increased. The smoke was growing more dense. I knew the material aloft – flimsy, dry linens, parched canvas, and paint-coated tapestries and drops.

"Without raising my voice to a pitch calculated to alarm, and yet unmistakably urgent in its appeal, I repeated: 'Get out – get out slowly.'

"The northeast corner of the fly gallery was now a furnace. Just as I made the last appeal to the balcony and the gallery a fiercely blazing ember dropped at my feet. Another, a smaller one, was caught in the draft and forced out into the theater proper.

"'Drop the fire curtain,' I shouted again, looking in vain for it to come down. I know that not a soul in the theater proper would be in danger if this was done. The switchboard was there – but no one to work it. I cried out for Carleton, our stage manager. He was gone. I called for 'Pete,' one of the electricians. He, too, was gone.

"'Does any one know how this iron curtain is worked?' I yelled at the mob of fleeing stage hands, members of the company, property men, and musicians. Not an answer.

"At the first sign of danger, after reaching the footlights, I said to Dillea, our orchestra leader:

"'An overture, Herbert, an overture.'

"Dillea – God bless him, his ranks already thinning out in the orchestra pit – struck up the 'Sleeping Beauty and the Beast' overture. Of the thirty odd musicians in the pit not over half a dozen remained to follow Dillea and his baton. But the little fellow, ashen pale, his eyes glued on the raging mass of flame above, never whimpered. He kept right on, and only left his post when the flames drove him away from his leader's stand. When Dillea disappeared down the opening in the orchestra pit half of the lower floor had been emptied. This I noticed only in an aside, for my eyes were fastened on the sea of agonized, distracted little ones in the balcony and gallery."

AN ELEVATOR BOY HERO

The bottom of the elevator shaft in the doomed theater was a scene of pandemonium when the stage hands tried to get the girls out. Archie Barnard headed the chain gang and behind him were J. R. O'Mally, Arthur Hart and William Price. As soon as the women reached the floor they began to run wild, and had to be caught and tossed from one man to another. The women in the first tier of dressing rooms were the first down and they were helped out without much trouble.

On his second trip up with the elevator young Robert Smith ascended into an atmosphere that was so thick with smoke that he could not see or breathe. He found one of the girls on the sixth floor and then took on another load from the fifth. By the time he had come down with these, the flames and smoke were threatening the men in the chain. The clothing of Barnard and William Price was on fire and their hair was burning. Nevertheless they threw the girls out and waited for the third load.

This load came near not arriving. The smoke was so thick that Smith had to find the girls and drag them into the elevator and by the time he had done this he was almost overcome. The elevator was burning at the place where the controller was located, and Smith had to place his left hand in the flame to start the car. The hand was badly burned, but the car was started and came down in time for the girls to receive assistance from the men who were waiting. When the last girl was out the men left the building.

Up in the gridiron, where the smoke was thickest, the four German boys who worked the aerial apparatus were caught, fully sixty feet from the stage floor, and no one had time to come to their assistance or to pay any attention to them, because there were too many other people to be saved.

At first, they did not know what to do. As the smoke became thicker and the heat more intense they moved to get out. One of them, who was some distance from his companions, was caught in the flames of one of the burning pieces of draperies, and either because he lost his presence of mind or because he could not hold out any longer, he jumped. Some of the people on the stage floor heard him fall, but he did not move and no one could help him. He could not be found after the other people escaped from the stage. His three companions climbed over the gridiron scaffolding and made their way down the stairway to safety.

"I heard the little fellow fall," said Arthur Hart, "and that is the last I knew of him. It was a long jump, and I presume that he was badly injured."

"I stuck to the car until the ropes parted," said young Smith, the elevator boy, "and then I began to get faint. Someone reached in and pulled me out just in time to save my life. The larger part of the girls were in the dressing rooms when the fire broke out, and they all tried to get out at once. A great many tried to crowd into the elevator and it was hard work to keep it going. I made as many trips as I could."

TWO BALCONY HEROES

A man who gave his name as Chester, with his wife and two daughters, was a hero who escaped without letting the police know who he was. This man was in the lower balcony of the theater and in the panic he succeeded in reaching the fire escape with his children and wife. After getting on the fire escape, the flames swept up and set the clothing of his wife and girls on fire. Burned himself, he fought the flame and then realizing that delay meant certain death he dropped the children to the ground, a distance of ten feet, and then dropped his wife. Then he leaped himself.

W. G. Smith of the Chicago Teaming Company, 37 Dearborn street, saw them jumping and with some of his men he picked them up and carried them into his store. This was before the fire department arrived.

When all had been taken in Smith rushed back into the alley to find the lower fire escape filled with screaming, struggling women. All were hatless and their faces were scorched by the intense heat. He shouted to them to wait a moment, as the firemen were coming, but one woman leaped as he spoke. She too was taken into Smith's store and all his patients were taken later to nearby hotels, where their injuries were attended to.

After Smith left the alley Morris Eckstrom, assistant engineer, and M. J. Tierney, engineer of the university building, ran to the rescue of the women on the fire escape. The firemen had not yet arrived, and the screams of the women with the flames creeping upon them were frightful to hear.

"Jump one by one," shouted Eckstrom, "and we'll catch you."

Tierney grabbed a long blanket from the engine room, and the women, realizing it was their only chance, leaped into it. In some cases they were injured, but none was seriously hurt.

"I know we caught twenty women that way, before the flames got so terrific that none of them could reach the fire escape," said Eckstrom. "I saw a dozen women and children and some men, through the open door to the fire escape, fall back into the flames."

THE MUSICAL DIRECTOR'S STORY

Musical Director Herbert Dillea of the "Mr. Bluebeard" company, who was one of the first of the members of the orchestra to see the fire, had several narrow escapes from death while he endeavored to rescue four of the chorus girls who had fainted in the passageway which leads from the armor-room to the front smoking apartment.

Dillea was nearly overcome by the thick smoke which filled the areaway, but, with the assistance of some of the stage employes, he succeeded in carrying the unconscious actresses to the street. The young women, upon reaching the fresh air, soon revived, and they were taken care of in stores until they got their street clothing.

Dillea said that several other members of the orchestra vainly endeavored to persuade some of the audience who were occupying front seats to enter the passageway, but no attention was paid to them.

In describing his experiences Dillea said:

"It was during the second verse of the 'Pale Moonlight' song that I suddenly saw a red light to my left in the proscenium arch. The moment I saw the red glare I knew there was a fire, and in whispers I ordered the other members of the orchestra to play as fast as they could, as I thought the asbestos would be lowered. We had hardly begun to play when the asbestos started to come down, but right in the middle it stopped, and it remained so.

"By this time the chorus girls were shrieking with terror, as the fire brands were falling among them on the stage. As soon as the audience saw the fire brands they began to arise, but Eddie Foy ran out and begged them to remain quiet, assuring them that there was no danger. The audience paid no attention to him and the panic followed. Then I thought it was time to make our escape, and I turned to the orchestra men and told them to follow me to the passageway. While I was running through the areaway I shouted to the actresses. They ran from their rooms, and four of them fainted. It was only with the greatest difficulty they were carried out."

CHILD SAVES HIS BROTHER

Willie Dee, the 12-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Dee, who lost two children in the fire, by a presence of mind and bravery that would have been commendable in a person of mature years saved himself and a smaller brother not 7 years old.

The four children of Mr. and Mrs. Dee attended the theater on the fatal afternoon in company with their nurse, Mrs. G. H. Errett. Besides Willie, the oldest of the children, there were two twin boys, Allerton and Edward, between 6 and 7 years of age, and the baby 2½ years old. Willie was one of the first to notice the fire and called to the nurse to go out. The nurse did not grasp the situation, thinking the flames a part of the act, and hesitated. Noticing her hesitation, Willie seized the nearest one of the children, Allerton and pulled the smaller boy with him down the stairs from the first balcony in which the party was seated. The two boys were unable to move fast enough to keep ahead of the crowd, although they were the first ones out. They were overtaken and both of them shoved through the doors in front, where they became separated. Willie thought his little brother lost and went home without him. The smaller boy was later picked up and taken into Thompson's restaurant, from which place he was taken home, practically uninjured.

The other twin, Edward, was killed where he sat. The nurse and baby succeeded in reaching the first landing, where they were trampled underfoot. A fireman took the baby from the nurse's arms and placed it in charge of Dr. Bridge. The doctor succeeded in resuscitating it and took it to his home at Forty-ninth street and Cottage Grove avenue, where it died early the following morning.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRE – THE ASBESTOS CURTAIN AND THE LIGHTS

The real story of the origin of the fire was told by William McMullen, assistant electrician. He said: "The spot light was completely extinguished at the time of the fire. I am positive of this, because I was working on it. Three feet above my head was the flood light. I noticed the curtain swaying directly above it and suddenly a spark shot up and it was ablaze in a second."

McMullen called the attention of his assistant to the flame.

"Put the fire out," he said.

"All right," said the other man, reaching down, using his hands to put out the small flame.

"Put it out! Put it out!" shouted McMullen.

"I am! I am!" said the other, clapping the flimsy stuff between his hands.

Some of the stage hands at this moment noticed the fire.

"Look at that fire!" these called out. "Can't you see that you're on fire up there! Put it out!"

"D – it, I am trying to," said the man who was clapping away at the burning paint impregnated muslin.

Then a flame a foot high shot up and caught the draperies above those on fire.

"Look at that other one. It's on fire," some one on the stage yelled.

"Put it out!" shouted another.

"All right," said the man on the perch. But he did not clap hard enough or fast enough, and in ten seconds the flames were beyond his reach.

It was after these hand clapping attempts to extinguish the fire had proved futile that McMullen shouted a call for the asbestos curtain to be put down.

"I did not see the curtain move."

ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE'S ORIGIN

W. H. Aldridge, who was employed to operate one of the so-called calcium lights, told how the fire started.

"I was about twenty feet above the lights which were being used, having left my place to watch the performance," he said. "While I was looking down on the performers I noticed a flash of light where the electric wires connect with the calcium light. The flash seemed to be about six inches long. As I looked a curtain swayed against the flame. In a moment the loose edges of the canvas were in a blaze, which rapidly ran up the edge of the canvas and across its upper end.

"A man named McNulty was in charge of the light. Whether he accidentally broke the wire and caused the flash I do not know. The light was about twenty feet from the floor. It consisted of a 'spot' light, used to follow the principal performer, and a 'flood' light, which was used to produce the moonlight effect."

WERE ELECTRIC LIGHTS TURNED OUT?

James B. Quinn, general manager of the Standard Meter company, who was present throughout the panic, said on this point: "Had the electrician who had charge of the switches for the foyer lights remained at his post long enough to have turned on the lights in the foyer there would not have been one-half the loss of life in the foyer and balcony stairs. When that awful darkness fell on the house the frenzied people did not know where to turn. They had not become fully acquainted with the turns because the theater was new. I was there and assisted in removing the dead and dying, and having been connected with lighting plants all my life I know what I am talking about. We did not have an electric light turned on for two hours after the fire. It was too late then. True, we had lanterns, but they were inadequate and would not have been needed had the electrician or his assistant done their duty. When the lights were turned on it was done by outside electricians."

STATEMENT OF MESSRS. DAVIS AND POWERS, MANAGERS OF THE THEATER

When the fire broke out Manager Will J. Davis of the Iroquois was attending a funeral. A telephone message was quietly whispered to him and, after hesitating a moment, Davis unostentatiously slipped on his overcoat and left the place.

Mr. Davis and Harry J. Powers later stated as follows:

"So far as we have been able to ascertain the cause or causes of the most unfortunate accident of the fire in the Iroquois, it appears that one of the scenic draperies was noticed to have ignited from some cause. It was detected before it had reached an appreciable flame, and the city fireman who is detailed and constantly on duty when the theater is open noticed it simultaneously with the electrician.

"The fireman, who was only a few feet away, immediately pulled a tube of kilfire, of which there were many hung about the stage, and threw the contents upon the blaze, which would have been more than enough, if the kilfire had been effective, to have extinguished the flame at once; but for some cause inherent in the tube of kilfire it had no effect. The fireman and electrician then ordered down the asbestos curtain, and the fireman threw the contents of another tube of kilfire upon the flame, with no better result.

"The commotion thus caused excited the alarm of the audience, which immediately started for the exits, of which there are twenty-five of unusual width, all opening out, and ready to the hand of any one reaching them. The draft thus caused, it is believed, before the curtain could be entirely lowered, produced a bellying of the asbestos curtain, causing a pressure on the guides against the solid brick wall of the proscenium, thus stopping its descent.

"Every effort was made by those on the stage to pull it down, but the draft was so great, it seems, that the pressure against the proscenium wall and the friction caused thereby was so strong that they could not be overcome. The audience became panic-stricken in their efforts to reach the exits and tripped and fell over each other and blocked the way.

"The audience was promptly admonished and importuned by persons employed on the stage and in the auditorium to be calm and avoid any rush; that the exits and facilities for emptying the theater were ample to enable them all to get out without confusion.

"No expense or precaution was omitted to make the theater as fireproof as it could be made, there being nothing combustible in the construction of the house except the trimmings and furnishings of the stage and auditorium. In the building of the theater we sacrificed more space to aisles and exits than any theater in America."

FIRST RELIABLE STATEMENT AS TO WHY THE CURTAIN DID NOT COME DOWN

The man who gave the first reliable explanation of the failure of the "asbestos" curtain to operate properly was John C. Massoney, a carpenter, who was working as a scene shifter.

"The reflector was constructed of galvanized iron or some similar material, with a concave surface covered with quicksilver about two feet in width," he said.

"The reflector was twenty feet long and was set on end. The inner edge was attached to the stage side of the jamb of the proscenium walls with hinges. Along the inner edge, next the hinges, was a row of incandescent electric lamps.

"When the reflector was not in use it was set back in a niche in the proscenium wall, and the curtain, when lowered, passed over it. When used it was swung around to the desired position, and projected from the wall. When the reflector was in use it prevented the curtain being lowered."

"I have not ascertained whether the reflector was in use. The one on the south side of the stage was not, and from this I infer that the one on the north was not being used. If it was not in use, then somebody must have been careless."

Massoney said he was on the south side of the stage when the fire started.

"I did not see the fire start, but I saw it soon after it began," he said. "The fire was in the arch drapery curtain, which is the fourth curtain back of the 'asbestos' curtain. I saw the 'asbestos' curtain coming down soon after, but I noticed that the south end was very much lower than the north end. The south end was within four or five feet of the stage floor, while the north end was much higher.

"I ran round to the north side and up the stairs to the north bridge. I found the north end of the curtain was resting on the reflector. I tried to reach the curtain to push it off the reflector, but could just touch it. I could not get hold of it. I am 5 feet 11 inches tall, and I can reach a foot above my head at least, so I figure that the north end of the curtain was nineteen or twenty feet from the floor.

"When I first reached the bridge sparks were flying in one little place near me, but before I got down I saw a great sheet of circular flame going out under the curtain into the audience room. I stayed on the bridge as long as I could trying to move the curtain. I half fell down the stairs of the bridge and got out as fast as I could."

"Why didn't you call some one to help you?"

"There was no one on the bridge when I got there and no one on duty, that I could see, on the north side of the stage."

"Was the reflector in use?"

"I do not know."

"Whose duty was it to look after the reflector?"

"I do not know."

"Did the curtain blow to pieces?"

"It seemed all right. There was no hole in it that I saw."

ANOTHER STORY AS TO WHY THE CURTAIN DID NOT LOWER

Joe Dougherty, the man who attempted to lower the asbestos curtain, says that the reason it stuck and would not come down was that it stuck on the arc spot light in the first entrance near the top of the proscenium arch. He was the last man to leave the fly loft and at the time he attempted to lower the asbestos curtain he was twenty feet or more above it, so that when it caught on the arc spot light he was unable to extricate it. The opening of the big double doors at the rear of the stage, he says, caused such a draft that the curtain could not be raised again to free it from the obstruction.

Dougherty denies that the wire used by the flying ballet had anything to do with the obstruction of the curtain. The regular curtain was within a few inches of the asbestos sheet and had been operated a few minutes before the fire occurred. If one curtain worked the other would if the flying ballet rigging was not in the way.

THE THEATER FIREMAN'S NARRATIVE

W. C. Saller was the fireman employed by the theater managers to look after fire protection. He was formerly connected with the city fire department.