Notorious Chicago | Iroquois Theater | Eddie Foy
The day was Monday, November 27, 1903, when the brand new Iroquois Theater, an “absolutely fireproof” theatre, opened in Chicago at 24-28 Randolph (between State and Dearborn streets). On Wednesday, December 30th, the hit musical, “Mr. Bluebeard” starring Eddie Foy was enjoying its sixth week of a successful run as the Iroquois Theatre’s first production. Pictured on the bottom is the cover of the Programme.
Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1903
Five hundred and seventy-one lives were destroyed by fire in the Iroquois Theater in the fifteen minutes between 3:15 and 3:30 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Of the dead, less than 100 were identified last night.
Of the unidentified nearly all were so badly burned that recognition was impossible. Only by trinkets and burned scraps of wearing apparel will the bodies of hundreds be made known to their families.
March from Deadhouse to Deadhouse.
All night long a horror chained but resolutely persistent throng of those whose friends and relatives were numbered among the missing lifted blanket after blanket in the search of fear through the morgues of the city.
Not since the Fire of 1871, when 250 were killed, has Chicago been mantled by such a universal tragedy; never has it received a blow so instantaneously shocking.
This frightful thing was over before the city knew it happened; the news in its wild spread left paralysis behind.
“Mr. Bluebeard” was being performed in the theater. An audience not only of unusual size but of unusual composition was listening to it. It was the matinée audience of the mid-holiday season.
Children and Women the Victims.
Only once in a year could such an audience have gathered; only once in all the twelve-month could so many children have been collected within the walls of the theater.
And on this one occasion the sacrifice to flames was demanded. There were men in the audience; there were men in the galleries, from which the greatest tribute of death was demanded, but they were few in proportion to the children. There were women, too. Some of them died with their arms around their children. Probably the proportion of men in the theater might have been one to ten women and children; of women one to four children or young people.
- After fifty-five hours had passed since the Iroquois fire, only twenty-one bodies remained unidentified out of the total number of 582 victims. The showing at midnight:
Death’s Harvest in the Galleries.
There were 2,000 persons or thereabouts in the theater. Of that number 1,740 had seats. The rest were massed in the rear of the seats on the main floor and the first balcony.
In the galleries, even the rear seats of the second gallery, were seated persons who ordinarily would have not been content with anything less than parquet seats. They were mothers, aunts, and older sisters, taking the children for an outing which fitted only to this one afternoon; young fellows from college treating their visiting chums to the theater; school girls out with their young friends for the same kind of a lark. A number of parties consisted of trios of girls under 15 years of age.
Such was the human material provided on one side of the curtain.
On the other were 300 members of the extravaganza company. They were dressed in flimsy garments, trailing with gauze, veils of death once the breath of fire swept over them.
Fire Curtain a Delusion.
Between audience and performers was the curtain line, down with an asbestos fire curtain could have fallen a second after the alarm was given, confining the fire to the stage.
The curtain never fell.
The fire leaped from the stage as if from a furnace door. The draft from the opened stage exits behind drove it across the auditorium and upward to the galleries. Over a carpet of the dead it forced its own way through the chimney of the alley doors on the galleries.
The newest theater in Chicago, the playhouse declared to be fireproof from dressing rooms to capstone, burned till the stage was a steel skeleton and its wrecked interior a charnel house.
The coroner today will begin laboriously to try and learn who, if any one, was to blame; the building commissioner will endeavor to learn if the building was overcrowded, and if all the ordinances were obeyed.
And the people for their part will have funerals to attend. And there will be hearses at these funerals. The liverymen strikers will not molest them.
Why Curtain Failed to Work.
The only thing plain last night was that the asbestos curtain did not fall. The flyman of the theater, Charles Johnson, said that for some time past it had been the practice of the theater to have the curtain high at night so as to permit a good view for the aerial ballet.
“They attempted to drop the curtain,” he said, “but it would not drop below the height it had been fixed at,”
Manager Will J. Davis was not at the theater. The report made to him was that the curtain caught when a little way down and bulged out under the force of the terrific draft.
“Men tried to pul it down,” he said. “It would not come.”
Absent from All Important Post.
Another report in wide circulation was that the assistant stage manager, who had immediate charge of the curtain, was not on the stage, but in front. He, it was declared, could have touched an electric button which would have operated the sheet in a second. Without him, according to this story, the attempt was made clumsily to run the curtain down by hand, an attempt that failed.
The fire started while the double octet was staging “In the Pale Moonlight,” Eddie Foy, off the stage, was making up for his “elephant” specialty.
On the audience’s left—the stage right—a line flashed straight up. It was followed by a noise as of an explosion. According to nearly all accounts, however, there was no real explosion, the sound being that of the fuse of the “spot” light which is turned on a pivot to follow and illuminate the progress of the star across the stage.
“Spot” Electric Light the Cause.
This light caused the fire. On this all reports of the stage folk agree. As to manner, accounts differ widely. R. M. Cummings, the boy in charge of the light, said last night that it was short circuited.
Stage hands, as they fled from the scene, however, were heard to question one another. “Who kicked over the light?” The light belonged to the “Bluebeard” company.
Just a Little Flame at First.
The beginning of the disaster was leisurely. The stage hands had been fighting the line of wavering flame along the muslim fly border for some seconds before the audience knew anything was the matter.
The fly border, made of muslin and saturated with paint, was tinder to the flames.
Attack Blaze with Sticks.
The stage hands grasped the long sticks used in their work. They forgot the hand grenades that are supposed to be on every stage.
“Hit it with the sticks!” was the cry. “Beat it out!” “Beat it out!”
The men struck savagely. A few yards of the border fed upon the stage and was stamped to charred fragments.
That sight was the first warning the audience had. For a second there was a hush. The singers halted in their lines; the musicians ceased to play.
Then the murmur of fear ran through the audience. There were cries from a few, followed by the breaking, rumbling sound of the first step toward the flight of panic.
One Man Keeps His Head.
At that moment a strange, grotesque figure appeared upon the stage. It wore tights, a loose upper garment, and the face was one-half made up. The man was Eddie Foy, chief comedian of the company, the clown, but the only man who kept his head.
Before he reached the center of the stage he had called out to a stage hand; “Take my boy, Bryan, there! Get him out! There by the stage way!”
The stage hand grabbed the little chap. Foy saw him dart with him to safety as he turned his head.
Freed of parental anxiety, he faced the audience.
“Keep quiet!” he shouted. “Quiet.”
“Go out in order!” he shouted. “Don’t get excited!”
Between exclamations he bent over toward the orchestra leader.
Orchestra Plays in Face of Death.
“Start an overture!” he commanded. “Start anything. For God’s sake, play, play, play, and keep playing.”
The brave words were as bravely answered. Gillea raised his wand, and the musicians began to play. Netter than any one in the theater they knew their perm. They could look slantingly up and see that the 300 sets of the “Bluebeard” scenery all were ablaze. Their faces were white, their hands trembled, but they played, and played.
Foy still stood there, alternately urging the frightened people to avoid a panic and spurring the orchestra on. One by one the musicians dropped fiddle, horn, and other instruments and stole away.
- Iroquois Theater at the time of the fire
“Clown” Proves a Hero.
Finally the leader and Foy were left alone. Foy gave one glance upward and saw the scenery all aflame. dropping brands fell around him, and then he fled—just in time to save his own life. The “clown” had proved himself a hero.
The curtain started to come down. It stopped, it swayed as from a heavy wind, and then it “buckled” near the center.
All Hope Lost for Gallery.
From that moment no power short of omnipotent could have saved the occupants of the upper gallery.
The coolness of Foy, of the orchestra leaders and of other players, who begged the audience to hold itself in check, however, probably saved many lives on the parquet floor. Tumultuous panic prevailed, but the maddest of it—save in the doomed gallery—was at the outskirts of the ground floor crowd.
Those in greatest danger through proximity to the stage did not throw their weight against the mass ahead. Not ,amy died on the first floor, proof of the contention that some restraint existed in this section of the audience.
Women were trod under foot near the rear; some were injured. The most at this point, however, were rescued by the determined rush of the policemen at the entrance and of the doorkeeper and his assistants.
Some Exits Are Closed.
The theater had thirty exits. All were opened before the fire reached full headway, but some had to be forced open. Only one door at the Randolph street entrance was open, the others being locked, according, it appears, to custom.
From within and without these doors were shattered in the first two minutes after the fire broke out—by the theater employees, according to one report, by the van of fleeting multitude and the first of the rescuers from the street, according to another.
The doors to the exits on the alley side, between Randolph and Lake streets, in one or more instances, are declared by those who escaped to have been either frozen or rusted. They opened to assaults, but priceless seconds were lost.
Theatrical People All Escape.
Before this time Foy had run back across the stage and reached the alley. With him fled the members of the aerial ballet, the last of the performers to get out. The aerialists owed their lives to the boy in charge of the fly elevator. They were aloft, in readiness for their flight above the heads of the audience. The elevator boy ran his cage up even with the line of fire, took them in, and brought them safely down.
As Foy and the group reached the outer doorway the stage loft collapsed and tons of fire poured over the stage.
The lights went out in the theater with this destruction of the switchboard and all stage connections. One column of flame rose and swished along the ceiling of the theater. Then this awful illumination also was swallowed up. None may paint from personal understanding that which took place in that pit of flame lit darkness. None lives to tell it.
To those still caught in the structure the light of life went out when the electric globes grew dark.
In spite of the terrible form of their destruction, it came swiftly enough to shorten pains. This at least was true of those who died in the second balcony, striving to reach the alley exits abreast of them.
Dead Piled Six Feet Deep.
Six and seven feet deep they were found, not packed in layers but jumbled and twisted in the struggle with one another.
Opposite the westernmost exit of the balcony—on the alley—was a room in the Northwestern University building (the old Tremont house), where painters were working, wiping out the traces of another fire.
They heard the sound of the detonation of the fuse; they heard the rush of feet toward the exit across the way. Out on the iron stairway came a man, pushed by a power behind, himself crazy with fear. He would have run down the iron fire escape, but flames burst out of the exit beneath and wrapped itself around the iron ladder.
Bridge the Alley with Planks.
“A ladder!” shouted one of the painters, “Run it out.” It was run out. The man started to cross. The ladder slipped on the frosty window casing. Its burden was precipitated down on the icy ground.
The first of the arriving firemen picked up the broken form. The body was the first taken to a morgue.
Women prepared to jump from the platform.
“Wait!” cried the painters. “We have planks.” Three wide planks were thrust across the alley. The painters sank to their knees to anchor them. “Come on!” they shouted.
Little Girl First Across.
Hortense Lang, 10 years old, dragging her sister Irene, 11 years old, was the first to cross.
She was hysterical when she dropped inside the sheltering room.
“I was going to jump,” she sobbed, “but I thought of my mother. I just grabbed sister by hand and waited for the planks. I don’t know how we crossed.”
The mother, Mrs. L. Lang, 580 Forty-fifth street, also was in the theater, on the first floor. She got out safely, and an hour afterwards found her children in the Tremont house. The reunited three sat with arms around another for another hour.
Die with Safety in Sight.
Just twelve persons escaped across the plankway. The twelfth was pursued by a pillar of fire which dashed itself against the wall of the university building.
The steel platform was packed with women and children. They died right there. The bodies of some fell over into the alley. From within the bodies others fell part way out of the aperture.
The helpless watchers, peering through the smoke, could see the heaps of the dead between the seats and along the outside of the gallery.
Firemen crossed the gangway as soon as the tongue of flame drew back and climbed over the ghastly wall to direct the stream of water inward and downward.
- Floor Plan of The Iroquois
“Anybody Alive Here?” No Answer.
They entered too soon. The tongue again licked upwards. The fighters and rescuers retreated stubbornly, but they were driven back.
Marshall Campton was in command of the firemen. He saw that the gallery must be for a time abandoned. The forms of women and children were all about him and his men. No movement was perceptible, but he knew that the living might be buried under the dead.
“Is there any living person here?” the marshal shouted again and again.
The cry echoed through the silent place and no voice answered.
Once more he shouted, “If any one here is alive, groan or make some sound. We’ll take you out.”
Not a Moan Is Heard.
Not an arm waved in the mounds about him; no moan was heard.
“We will have to get back,” ordered the marshal, reluctantly. As they defiled over the planks the fire once more billowed to the windows. But this time no new victims. It needed not to make its work more thorough.
Fire Checked, Rescue Starts.
When the firemen reentered the theater from the alley side they were not again repulsed. They played upon the fire, now largely confined to the stage, long enough to permanently check it, and then all but the men needed to hold the lines of hose turned their attention to the labor of clearing the balcony of the bodies.
While they worked from the north scores of citizen rescuers were bearing corpses out through the Randolph street entrance. From this entrance also were borne the bulk of the injured.
There was no need for physicians to inspect the bodies taken out over the gangway.Scores of injured were cared for in the Northwestern University building, but they were persons brought in from the ground floor.
Bodies Not Recognizable.
The bodies dragged across the planks for the most part unrecognizable. Ropes were passed around the feet and one set of men pulled while one man steadied the head of the corpse. Once across, however, the bodies were cared for with tender pity. Blankets were thrown over them and they were laid in rows on the floor and on long tables. Not until 7 o’clock was the last body taken from the theater by this route. Toward the end the bodies were sent to the morgues as soon as they were received in the university building.
Meets Death in Many Ways.
The postures in which death was met showed how the end had come to many.
A husband and wife were locked so tightly in one another’s arms that the bodies had to be taken out together. A woman had thrown her around a child in a vain effort to save her. Both were burned beyond recognition.
The sight of the children’s bodies broke down the composure of the most restrained of the rescuers. As little form after form was brought out the tears ran down the faces of policemen, firemen, and bystanders. Small hands were clenched before childish faces—fruitless attempts at protection from the scorching blast.
Children Saved from Mutilation.
Most of the children will be recognized. Fate allowed that thin shadow of mercy. They fell beneath their taller companions. The flames reached them, but they were face downward, other forms were above them, and generally their features were spared.
In Death They Save Others.
The persons crowded off the fire escape platform, and those who jumped voluntarily by their own death saved persons on the lower floor from injury. Scores jumped from the exits at the first balcony, the first to death and injury, the ones behind to comparative safety on the thick cushion of the bodies of those who preceded them and who fell from the balcony above. Other hundreds from the main floor jumped on to the same cushion—an easy distance of six feet—without any injury.
When the firemen came they spread nets, but the nets were black, and in the gloom they could not be seen. They saved few lives—argument for the use of white nets hereafter.
No Alarm Box at Theater.
The chain of mishaps surrounding the catastrophe extended to the fire alarm. There was no fire alarm box in front of the theater as at other theaters. A stage hand ran down the alley to South Water Street and by word of mouth turned in a “still” alarm to No. 13. The box alarm did not follow for some precious minutes. At least four minutes were lost in this way.
Few in Balcony Escaped.
Of the 900 persons seated in the first and second balconies, few if any escaped without serious injury.
So fiercely the fire burned during the short time in which hundreds of lives were sacrificed that the velvet cushions of the balcony seats were burned bare.
The crowds fought so in their efforts to escape that they tore away the iron railings of the balconies, leaping upon the people below.
Hours in Carrying Out Dead.
From 3 o’clock, when the alarm was sent in, to 7:30 o’clock, when the doors of the theater were closed. the charred, torn, and blistered bodies were carried from the building at a rate of four a minute. One hundred were taken out across the plank way.
Many blankets filled with fragments of human bodies taken from the building.
Hundreds Beyond Recognition.
Hundreds of bodies were taken from the building, their clothing gone, their faces charred beyond recognition. Under pretense of serving as rescuers ghouls gained entrance to the theater and robbed dead and dying in the midst of the fire.
Men fell on their knees and prayed. Men and women cursed. A rush was made for the Rndolph street exits. In their fear the crowds forgot the many side exits, and rushed for the doors at which they entered the theater. Little boys and girls were thrown to one side by their stronger companions.
Ten baskets of money and jewelry thrown in this manner were picked up from the main floor when the fire was extinguished.
Men and women tore their clothing from them. As the first rush was made for the foyer entrance to the balconies men, women, and children were thrown bodily down the steps.
A few score of those nearest the doorways escaped by falling or being thrown down the stairs of the main balcony entrance.
Scores were wedged in the doorways, pinned by the force of those behind them. There in the narrow aisles at the balcony entrances they were suffocated and fell—tons of human weight.
- A French tabloid’s version of the chaos inside the theater.
Rush Down Slanting Aisles.
All succeeded in leaving their seats in the first balcony. Climbing over the seats and rushing up the slanting aisles to the level aisles above, they fought their way. Those at the bottom of the mass were burned but a little. The top layer of bodies were burned till they never can be identified.
Firemen Work in Dark.
Darkness shrouded the theater with its hundreds of dead when the fire was under control that the building could be entered. The firemen were forced to work in smoky darkness when they started carrying the bodies from the balconies.
Falling over each other the rescuers groped in the dark for an arm or leg in the pile of victims trapped in the balcony. For an hour the rescue work was carried on without other light than that of candles.
Baby Stripped of Clothes.
All its clothing torn form it but a pair of baby shoes, the body of an infant was found in a far corner of the balcony.
In her haste to save herself the mother apparently had cast the child aside to be trampled upon and killed by the crowds.
So great was the confusion in the carrying out of the victims that the majority of those in the balconies whose bodies still contained life were the last to be taken from the building.
They were found underneath the dead, their lives saved by the stronger ones who had trampled them down. When itv was discovered that many were living the work of rescuing was begun. Charred and partly incinerated bodies were thrown or laid to one side. The forms of those apparently having life were carried out to be examined by the physicians.
Hatless, coatless, bruised, and bleeding from their fight for freedom, the crowds emerged. Men with presence of mind were carrying women and children. The strangest thing about their exit was the fact that it was silent. Few were screaming. The greatest nise was made by the gathering crowds.
Seeks Party of Twelve Children.
Managers Davis and Powers took up headquarters in the women;s dressing room south of the lobyb as soon as the fire was under control. Hardly had Mr. Davis entered the building when he was approached by George C. Sanburn, 834 Walnut street.
“I had twelve children in two boxes,” he said. “They’re missing. Are they in there?”
“My God, this is what cuts,” said Davis, and he turned away. Mr. Sanburn was assured that his son, Harold, 19 years old, had taken his sister, Eugene, 16 years old, and her ten guests from their boxes in safety.
“What do you want?” a policeman asked of C. E. Elliott, 1832 Michigan Avenue, when that man tried to force his way into the presence of the managers.
“My wife,” he sobbed, and turned away.
Plead for Word of Loved Ones.
Dozens went to the managers. Dozens pleaded with them for knowledge of their loved ones and were turned away by the heartsick men.
A woman, her hair flying, struck the policemen who would prevent her from seeing the managers, and slipped past them. Falling at the feet of a man in the room she threw her arms around his knees.
“O, my Harold,” she sobbed. “Please—please tell me, is he in there? God, man; that’s my only boy.”
The woman pulled at the coats of the men around her appealingly. Suddenly she arose and ran through those who would stop her into the blazing theater. She was brought back alone.
Stage after the fire.
Musham Finds Wall of Bodies.
Fire Chief Musham, summoned from the investigation about to be called at the city hall, was the first man to reach the second balcony. With a lantern in his hand and a half dozen men behind him he worked his way through the smoke to the top of the theater.
“My God, men, go back,” he shouted, when confronted with a wall of human bodies so high he could not see over them into the door. Then he sent out a call to the public to help carry out the victims.
Ghouls Rob the Dead.
There was a rush for the main entrance. Fathers and brothers were in the crowd. Ghouls were there also. Before the first fifty bodies had been carried from the burning theater a score or more of thieves had commenced searching the piles of dead for loot. They filled their pockets. Rings, bracelets, and watches were taken from the dead. Earrings were even torn from many of the women.
Interior of House a Wreck.
Today the main floor of the theater would make a fair skating rink, were the seats removed. It is covered with ice. Icicles hang from the lights, fixtures, and balconies. The rear wall was bulged several feet and has been propped to prevent its falling.
In taking out the building permit the owners set an estimate of $350,000 as the probable value of the building. The full value when completed is given by men connected with the management at $450,000.
Neither balcony fell. The seats are ruined, the stage a wreck, and the full loss, it is thought, may be $150,000-$200,000.
TAKING AWAY THE DEAD ON COAL, HAY AND FREIGHT WAGONS.
Morgues Filled and Overflowed.
The downtown morgues, Rolston’s and Jordan’s, were filled long before the tomb had given up its victims. After that bodies were sent to all undertaking rooms within reach, as far south as Eighteenth and Twenty-second streets, as far north as Division street and North Avenue.
The injured were sent largely to the Samaritan and to St. Luke’s hospitals.
Every kind of vehicle was used to transport the bodies of the dead. The injured generally were carried in ambulances or in patrol wagons.
Thompson’s restaurant, on Randolph street, next door to the theater, became an improvised hospital and morgue. Dead and dying were taken there promiscuously.
Doctors Organize Forces.
The doctors, summoned from every downtown office, elected Dr. G. Frank Lydstone, their chief, and under him they worked with both speed and system. Three doctors were assigned to a table, turned for the time being from the restaurant to operating use. As fast as a victim was pronounced dead the body was placed beneath the table and a new patient laid on the boards above.
In spite of the mighty efforts of the physicians, however, many of the injured were dead before they could be given help, and some were alive who were passed by as being dead. The movement of an arm or the twitch of a facial muscle wasa signal several times answered in haste by watching who thought they stood above a corpse.
Dreary Round of Searchers.
In the evening all suspense centered about the morgue. To these places of identification the bodies were carried in wagon loads each wrapped in its banket.
From morgue to morgue went the searchers.
Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1903
An improvised hospital in Marshall Field & Co.’s store was crowded to its capacity during the fire. The west room and employees’ sitting room on the eighth floor were filled within thirty minutes after the work of the rescue began. The maids in charge of the toilet rooms acted as nurses.
The Inter Ocean, December 31, 1903
- Death-Trap At The Main Balcony Exit.
Chicago Tribune, January 1, 1904
- Chicago Tribune
McCutcheon
January 1-3, 1904
Fireproof Magazine, February, 1904
EDITORIAL: TRUTH ABOUT THE IROQUOIS THEATER
Whether or not the Iroquois Theater is a fireproof building depends upon the interpretation of the term “fireproof.”
The opinion of this journal is that the Iroquois Theater is not fireproof, though it may be what is rather inappropriately termed semi-fireproof.
The owners protest that they incurred a heavy additional expense, the total cost amounting to something over $400,000, in order to render the building absolutely safe. And yet these same gentlemen permitted the introduction of a material in the construction which has been barred by law in the city of Minneapolis as not constituting a fireproof material, and by that we mean cinder concrete.
Cinder concrete is not fireproof and never was, and cannot be rendered fireproof.
When cinder concrete is subjected to the action of continued heat it will be found to disintegrate, or fuse, or collapse .
There were seven collapses of concrete construction during the month of December last, which did not even endure long enough to be tried out in a test by fire.
There is no question but that concrete, that is, good approved concrete, where the practice of the European schools is followed, in allowing it from one to two years to set, where only the best materials are used and when skilled labor is employed, will be found to be a fire retardent; but concrete is not fireproof.
Both the chief of the fire department of Chicago and a representative of the Roebling Company, resident in Chicago, agree that the fire was of very short duration -a sudden and abrupt explosive conflagration, with accompaniment of dense smoke and gas. This fact doubtless accounts for the remarkable preservation of much of the upholstering, both in the balcony and auditorium, beside which were found heaps of the dead.
The furnishing of the stage was not fire- proof. The aisles were inadequate to admit of the easy and rapid passage of those present, and around the boxes where aisles should have been provided there were none. There was a superabundance of wood trim, wire lath and plaster, cheap concrete and other fatal weaknesses which, while not immediately contributing to the disaster, in- volve serious indictment from a building point of view.
The story of the Iroquois, in all its appalling, overwhelming detail, will never be written. The whole truth has been buried in the agony of the death of those who suffered martyrdom within it. Who is responsible?
A legally constituted authority has involved the mayor of Chicago for wretched, feeble enforcement, and, collaterally, non-enforcement of the building ordinances.
The building department of the city of Chicago, whose commissioner has also been bound to the grand jury, has been criticised for years . Not only has the department been utterly incompetent, but there have been repeated and proven charges of cor- ruption and bribery. The occasional discharge of a commissioner under fire, the elevation of a deputy commissioner and another discharge, each followed in turn by some new appointment of somebody else, is the only net result the public has realized in the way of improvement of conditions at the hands of the executive.
The spectacle of the mayor of Chicago censured by one of his own officials, proceeding with a plea for release under a writ of habeas corpus, immediately and complimentarily issued, followed by a jollification and a session of high glee at the city hall, is enough to make the plainest citizen of the western metropolis ashamed of his city and his citizenship.
All of the newspapers of Chicago comment upon the appearance of the mayor wreathed in smiles and receiving the congratulations of his friends, when it has been clearly and unmistakably shown that the responsibility for the Iroquois disaster is not only primarily, but directly, attributable to lax executive methods of those who stood for election to the executive offices, taking therewith their oaths to enforce the law, which oaths they violated, and continue to violate every day in the year by the continued, open and flagrant non-enforcement of the building ordinances of Chicago .
With him in the stocks of public condemnation are the building commissioner and his deputies.
Commissioner Williams explains that he cannot properly discharge the duties of his office because he has not men enough, and that the council will not grant him an increase in the force. Commissioner Williams also excuses himself upon the plea that he has not time enough to properly examine the plans and specifications for buildings which are submitted to him for his official approval.
We venture the opinion that the law does not compel Commissioner Williams to issue a permit for the construction of a building until he is satisfied that everything is right.
But when Commissioner Williams does issue a permit he is under oath that such permit be regularly, properly and rightly issued, to the best of his knowledge and ability, and if some of the permits issued by the commissioner’s office of Chicago are to be taken as an evidence of the knowledge and ability of the building commissioner, it is not a far reach to the conclusion that there is neither knowledge nor ability in the department. It is easy enough for Commissioner Williams to refuse a permit for building construction upon the perfectly rational and natural plea that he has not the time nor the help necessary to issue the permit properly, and had he but the courage to take that position in the matter, and adhere to it, he would have the support both of the people and the press, and would thereby compel adequate provision for the proper administration of his office.
Meanwhile, six hundred people have gone to their deaths as the direct result of the inaction of those who are under oath and who are paid by the public to protect the lives of our citizens.
A long time ago this magazine appealed to the city council of Chicago and to its executive for a more conscientious and competent enforcement of the ordinance relating to building construction, and with a view to reform of the ordinances themselves, an appeal was made for repeal of the inadequate provisions of the building code. Many of the laws relating to building construction now standing upon the statute books of the city were enacted years before the present methods of building came into vogue, and long before the changed conditions rendered repeal necessary as the first step toward fireproof legislation.
The Chicago city council can be safely relied upon at all times to do the worst thing possible. There is a veritable imp of the perverse which seems to dominate that body. Nothing more incompetent, ridiculous and incoherent in the way of legislation could be possible than the new ordinance looking to the fireproofing of theaters.
The most hopeful sign of the season is the action taken by the building committee of the school board at the insistence of Mr. Mundie, the architect of the board. The committee has recommended to the board that a strict regulation be provided to the effect that all public school buildings hereafter erected shall be of absolutely fireproof construction.
All over the United States similar agitation, and, in many cases similar action, has been taken, and it is a commentary upon the aldermanic style of legislation that the school boards have been in almost every case in advance in the enactment of remedial legislation.
What Chicago needs, and what every other city needs, is a little bit of good law and a whole lot of honest enforcement.
The Iroquois Theater disaster, the most appalling which ever occurred in the United States, will be productive of at least some good, and it certainly seems as if the city of Chicago should be the first to repair the wrong that has been done, to punish those responsible for it, and to see to it that there be no possibility of recurrence in the future
Fireproof Magazine, February, 1904
Iroquois Theater Disaster
Nothing in the recorded history of fire has even approximated the appalling total of life loss visited upon the city of Chicago upon the afternoon of December 30 last.
Six hundred human lives sacrificed needlessly and criminally as the result not only of negligence, but of positive malfeasance upon the part of those obligated under oath to enforce the provisions of the city ordinances.
The finding of the coroner’s jury amounts practically to a moral indictment as well as a holding to legal accountability of Mayor
Harrison and his notorious building department, as well as the management of the theater proper, the fire chief and others whose responsibility is more remote.
We quote the following from the finding of the jury:
- We hold Carter H. Harrison, as mayor of the city of Chicago, responsible, as he has shown a lamentable lack of force in his efforts to shirk responsibility, evidenced by the testimony of Building Commissioner George Williams and Fire Marshal Wm. H. Musham. As heads of departments under the said Carter H. Harrison, following this weak course, have given Chicago inefficient services, which makes such calamities as the Iroquois Theater horror a menace until the public service is purged of incompetents, and we, the jury, recommend that the said Carter H. Harrison be held to the grand jury until discharged by due course of law.
With a contempt that is beyond comprehension, the recommendation of this jury, which has distinguished itself for fearless, honest and capable discharge of duty, has been refused and practically annulled by a weak judiciary, and the mayor is today practically relieved of the responsibility of answering otherwise than complacently the charges brought against him. What the effect of such procedure must be upon the public service is only too apparent. It amounts to an indorsement by the courts of the criminally weak and lackadaisical methods which have dishonored and besmirched the city department of Chicago for years—with the further and more deplorable future consequence that in the time to come there may again occur equally feeble administration of the law, with equally fearful and appalling consequences .
A review of the evidence before the coroner’s jury in the inquest held on Iroquois fire victims reveals some of the most startling admissions ever brought out before an investigating body. Defects of construction, defects in the interior arrangement and economy of the building were open and
flagrant.
Mr. Marshall, the architect of the Iroquois Theater, during the course of the examination was asked the following question:
- “As you understand the city ordinances , governing the construction of the proscenium arch, will you tell us what it should be constructed of?”
A. “It should be constructed of brick and of the same thickness as the outside walls.”
Q. “Will you tell us how it happened that the whole proscenium arch was not built of brick?”
A. ” It is all built of brick except the little corners, which give the shape of the arch, and in those corners, if you put brick in there, in case of a fire or anything, the brick will fall, and this Roebling system of wire lath and cement is pronounced much better for the shaping.”
Q. “How do you account, then, that these places where the lath are used, that there is a hole worked clear through on each side of the proscenium arch and the brick wall still remains?”
A. “This fireproofing will probably stand in a very hot fire, which that was, for about ten minutes, but when the water touches it then it crumbles.
And it did. With the exception of some of the bearing members and walls, the system of construction of the Iroquois Theater was of cinder concrete. Cinder concrete was used in the Iroquois Theater in violation of the rule established by Deputy Commissioner O’Shea at the time of the collapse of the Paddington apartment building, which rule, as established for the government of the building department, barred and prohibited the use of cinder concrete as a building material. Fire Chief Musham is authority for the absolute statement that the duration of the fire was less than twenty minutes, and a representative of the Roebling Construction Company, admitted frankly to the writer that while in his opinion the fire continued for a slightly longer time than that, the construction was not subjected to such a continued heat as to amount to a fire test of the construction.
In the light of numerous other cases of collapse of concrete construction, it is not too much to say that had the Iroquois construction been subjected to a continuous fire there would have ensued collapse of the concrete used in the building.
Cinder concrete is the cheapest and worst building material on the market, as evidenced in part by the reproduction in this issue of some half dozen cases of collapse of that substance which occurred during the single month of December last.
It is a very significant fact that the proposed test of the Iroquois construction by building a large fire within the auditorium in order to make a demonstration of the fire-resistant quality of the construction was very conveniently abandoned, ostensibly because of the opposition of the Chicago Board of Underwriters.
The rule of the building department barring the use of cinder concrete was, therefore, violated in the construction of the Iroquois.
What possible pressure could have been brought to bear upon the owners of the property and upon the architect to compel or persuade them to the use of cinder concrete, it would be very interesting to learn. The matter already published descriptive of the Iroquois disaster in its details has been most thorough and exhaustive, but we have not heard one word so far upon the concrete phase of the horror, other than that published herein.
How much worse it might have been let some other say.
Now that it is over, and the graves are covered, we may be prepared for the shifting of responsibility and the escape of those who ought to be hung for what happened. The building ordinances of the city of Chicago will not be enforced. There is nothing in the record to give the slightest color or the most fugitive hope of even an approximate enforcement.
Eighteen months ago a disastrous fire occurred in the Lincoln Hotel on Madison street .
The Lincoln Hotel was a firetrap of the most virulent type, and when fire came there were a dozen or more lives sacrificed as a result of the non-enforcement of the law applicable in that case .
Immediately following that disaster there was a spasm of reform, and a sudden and abrupt and unexpected activity in the vicinity of the city hall and the building department, looking to a proper enforcement of the ordinances applying to hotels, fire-escapes, etc. The Lincoln Hotel was generally condemned, its construction and arrangement denounced by the press, and the hotel practically condemned by the authorities.
It is open to-day—the Lincoln Hotel fire-trap is again open for and doing business—under the same false pretenses which characterized the construction and management at the time of the previous fire.
For this and a multitude of similar reasons, FIREPROOF magazine has neither expectation nor hope of the enforcement ofthe building ordinances, good, bad or indifferent, under the present wretched political conditions.
The new ordinances rushed through by the city council, when put to the test of a legal construction and interpretation, will hold water for about one minute. For instance, one of the provisions reads as follows:
“All theaters hereafter built shall be of fireproof construction.”
And not one word of definition of the term “fireproof construction.” In other words, a positive provision of law, mandatory in character, and yet so worded as to abandon its enforcement, and even its interpretation, to the discretion or personal opinion of whoever may happen to be building commissioner.
As against this sort of legislation, attention is called to the superb and effective building code of Minneapolis, Minn., in which a similar provision is made, but accompanied by and governed by a clear, comprehensive and explicit definition of the term “fireproof construction.”
It is to be hoped that other leading cities of the country, and, perhaps, some day, the city of Chicago, will find ability enough and energy enough and honor enough to enact good building laws, looking to a reform in building methods and to better, safer and stabler building construction, with the result that life and property may be conserved and safeguarded.
If the Iroquois Theater disaster shall prove to have brought about that result it will be a monument and the victims remembered and revered as martyrs to the cause of right and righteous building.
Chicago Tribune, January 2.1904
FIRETRAP AND CHEAPLY BUILT.
“Whole Thing Was of Rush Construction,” Says Editor of “Fireproof” Magazine.
“The Iroquois theater was a fire trap. The whole thing was a rush construction. It was beautiful but it was cheap. Everything but the structural members was of wood; the roller on the asbestos curtain, the pulleys; all a cheap compromise.”
This declaration last evening was made by William Clendenin, 455 Forty-sixth street, editor of the Fireproof magazine.
- I made an investigation of the theater last August and condemned it on four different points,” said Mr. Clendenin. ” My condemnation was published in the August number of the Fireproof. The points are:
1. The absence of an intake, or stage draft shaft.
2. The exposed reinforcement of the concrete arch.
3. The presence of wood trim on evers-thing.
4. The inadequate provision of exits.
A theater has two parts the stage and the house or audience part. There should be a roll shutter between the two, and the best sort of a curtain is a compromise. The poor stuff in the curtain at the Iroquois theater made it doubly a compromise; a great danger, a terrible trap.
The stage may be compared to a closet. When you open a closet door the draft is out-ward, not inward. So, when the fire started on the stage the draft pulled it toward the audience. It was a quick flame puff.
The arch, or ceiling. was covered withs cheap concrete. The first puft of flame de stroyed this. It crumbled away, exposing the twisted mass of steel reinforcement and girders, and fell on the audience. This killed many. Looking from below, the bewildered, choking, and maddened crowd thought it was the result of a panic above. They believed the galleries were falling, and, in the rush resulting, many more were killed.
The Iroquois theater was the most talked of construction in the country at the time of its building. It was belleved to be the expres. sion of the most modern ideas in regard to theater building; to be about as near fireproof as one could be. My investigation satisted me that it was one of the worst firetraps in the city. There was so much wood and so much plush and inflammable trimming atoat everything. The insuffleient exits tell the rest of the story.
Fireproof Magazine, November, 1904
Architects’ Experiences in Complying with the New Chicago Theater Ordinance.
The problem presented to the architect by the passage of the new theater ordinances was one which taxed his ingenuity and resourcefulness to the utmost; and added difficulties arose when it involved the reconstruction of a theater already built, with the surrounding space so occupied as to confine the solution along the lines which would not interfere with leases of adjoining space.
Some of the provisions of the ordinances were apparently devised without due consideration, and the results obtained in incorporating them into the remodeled structure were very different from the end aimed at by the framers. The difficulty of obtaining decisions on these items resulted in a system of “cut and try” solution, which had to be submitted to the building department at every step for its approval; a process complicated by the inability of the department for some time after the passage of the ordinance to give definite interpretation of its requirements. This uncertainty was augmented by the attitude of the council, which at first absolutely refused to consider changing the rigid requirements of the original draft. About the first of July, within a few weeks of the time of council adjournment for the summer recess and when the drawings for any alterations which had to be finished by the first of September were of necessity completed, the council began to take up the subject of changing the ordinance. This held the work in a state of uncertainty for some weeks, resulting finally in a few minor changes, which did not materially affect the original requirements. Had there been ample time for the execution of the work, the conditions might have been lighter both for owner and architect, but with September 1 set for the opening and the theatre managers anxious to receive the full income from their property up to the very last minute, there were less than sixty days left for the actual installation of the changes, which involved, in the case of the McVicker theater, for instance, a complete new fireproof stage house and practically an entire rearrangement of the auditorium on all levels, as well as expensive changes in the entrances and stairways. In the case of the McVicker theater, the alterations were so extensive that there was no portion of the premises occupied by the theater undisturbed except the basement, toilet and smoking rooms. Besides which the increased width of stairways necessitated rearrangement on several floors of the office building which adjoins the auditorium to the north.
The alterations required to comply with the ordinances were further complicated by the necessity for meeting the seating requirements of the owners, who naturally lesired to see the income-producing features of their houses maintained intact—where not possible to increase them. This was even more difficult of accomplishment than the constructional alterations, inasmuch as every change required by the ordinance. like widening of aisles, more numerous passages, additional stairways, etc., consumed space, which naturally had to be taken from the auditorium space. This consideration, together with the ordinance requirements for aisles leading directly to exits, or cross aisles in lieu there-of, led to the straight plan of seating—the old circular parquet arrangement sacrificing too many seats to permit of its continuance. This necessitated the reconstruction of the main floor, while the requirements for width of bank, spacing of seats and location of aisles required a similar reconstruction of the balcony and gallery levels .
Not the least of the difficulties encountered was the dissimilarity of arrangement offering solution in the case of the various theaters remodeled. For instance, in no two theatres reconstructed by Holabird & Roche, which included McVicker’s, the Garrick, the People’s and the Academy of Music, was the same solution possible. The general result of the alterations appears, however, to be satisfactory, considering haste and lack of definite information obtainable during the progress of the work.
In the case of the McVicker theater, the number of seats in the completed house is practically identical with those in place in the original building, notwithstanding the ordinance encroachment on seating space. The protective features introduced in complying with the ordinance have undoubtedly secured greatly improved protection to the patrons of the theaters, and it is difficult to see how a serious accident could occur so long as both the spirit and the letter of the law is enforced, as at present. The new covered fire escapes are here shown.
AFTERMATH
Yet some good came out of this tragedy. Lax enforcement of fire regulations became a thing of the past. All Chicago theatres were closed until they passed inspection. The effect spread beyond Chicago to every city in the country, where new ordinances were enacted and old ones enforced, so that theatres have never again been the menace they were before.
In the aftermath of the disaster, Will Davis, Manager of the Iroquois, was later charged and convicted of misfeasance. Chicago’s mayor was also indicted, though the charges didn’t stick. The theater owner was convicted of manslaughter due to the poor safety provisions; the conviction was later appealed and reversed (1907). In fact, the only person to serve any jail time in relation to this disaster was a nearby saloon owner who had robbed the dead bodies while his establishment served as a makeshift morgue following the fire.
The “absolutely fireproof” building survived with minimal damage and was reopened about a year later as the Colonial Theater. The building was torn down in 1924 to make way for the Oriental Theatre. The theatre has been renamed the Ford Center for the Performing Arts.
The Panic Bar
A salesman from an Indianapolis hardware store named Carl Prinzler was supposed to be in the audience that day. However, other business dealings called him elsewhere. In this era it was common for theatres and the like to lock interior and exterior doors to prevent non-paying persons from entering. This also inhibited persons on the inside from exiting. As was the case during the Iroquois Theatre Fire, all doors were locked and/or bolted which prevented patrons from exiting, causing most to be burned alive or succumbing to smoke inhalation. Prinzler was astounded at the enormous and senseless loss of life that night. He sought a way for doors into public facilities to be locked from the outside, but to allow egress from the inside with minimal effort during an emergency. Prinzler tapped into the architectural engineering abilities of Henry H. DuPont to develop a product. In 1908 the first model of a “panic bar” style egress device was released and Vonnegut Hardware Company (Clemens Vonnegut, great-grandfather of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr,) was utilized to market it. Owing to the joint effort to develop and sell the product, it was sold under the name Von Duprin, a combination of the names Vonnegut, DuPont and Prinzler.
The popular 88 Series crossbar exit devices still manufactured by Von Duprin have appear similar to the original design, although significant engineering changes have been made.
Von Duprin continues to manufacture security related products and is a brand of Allegion plc.
- The Panic Bar
Chicago Tribune December 31, 1910
Seven years after the Iroquois Theater fire, in which 600 persons lost their lives, Chicago’s long planned memorial of the catastrophe was dedicated. The memorial is the new Iroquois Memorial Emergency Hospital at 87 Market Street, which was dedicated yesterday and which was erected with funds raised by the Iroquois Memorial Association.
The afternoon exercises were at the hospital and the evening program was held in the Y.M.C.A. auditorium. The tragedy was recalled by Dr. W. A. Evans, commissioner of health, at almost the exact hour in which it took place, between 3 and 3:30 o’clock.
“We meet here today,” said he, “at the time of day when, just seven years ago, those whose tragic end we commemorate were on their way to death.
“It is well that they should not have died in vain, but that some good should come out of their sacrifice and suffering. Such calamities should make us greater in charity, philanthropy, and blessing. They should make us realize that we are all one family.”
- Iroquois Hospital, 23 N. Wacker Drive, 1910
Lorado Taft’s Iroquois Tablet, “Motherhood of the World protecting the children of the universe”
Turn Hospital Over to City.
President S. H. Regensburg made the dedication address and presented the hospital to the city and its keys to Dr. Evans at the evening session.
R. T. Crane Jr., honorary president of the association, spoke briefly, and was followed by Dr. Gorge J. Tobias on “Need of This Emergency Station.”
Dr. Tobias said he hoped some day the proper influence would rise and bring about a permanent injunction against the use of the scene of the fire for amusement purposes and that a permanent memorial may be raised on the spot instead.
About fifty persons who lost members of their families in the disaster listened to the speaking.
Cares for Downtown Accidents.
As explained by the speakers, the hospital was built to provide instant and free attention to victims of accidents downtown, the lack of which, it was said, was the cause of many of the deaths in the theater fire.
Temporary assistance will be rendered, the capacity being about sixty patients. The building cost about $50,000 and will be ready for occupancy in a short time.1
- The Burning Iroquois
Sheet Music
Words by Mathew Goodwin, Music by Edward Stanley
Publisher: McKinley Music Co., © 1904
NOTES:
1 The Iroquois Hospital was torn down in 1951.
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