Iroquois Theater Fire 1903

The Tragic Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903

On December 30th, 1903, a fire broke out during a packed matinee performance at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, leading to the deadliest single-building fire in American history, with over 600 casualties. Claimed to be 'nearly fireproof,' the theater's inadequate safety measures and locked exits contributed to the high death toll. The disaster prompted nationwide reforms in fire safety regulations. Despite widespread investigations and lawsuits, no one was held accountable for the tragedy. This episode explores the events leading up to the fire, the chaos that ensued, and its aftermath.

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Transcript

 On December 30th, 1903, during a more than sold out matinee performance of the musical comedy, Mr. Bluebeard, a fire started in what some called the nearly fireproof Iroquois Theater. Of the 2000 people in the audience, over 600 would lose their lives in what would be the deadliest single building fire in American history.

Only nine 11 would surpass it in lives lost to a disaster affecting a single American building. I'm Andrew and this is History's a Disaster.

So tonight we are back in the windy city for another fire. Totally not intentional. Uh, when I decided to do another fire episode, I wanted to do it on a theater. And surprise, surprise, the worst one in history was in Chicago. The big onion and fire have a long and storied history, and if you don't get the big onion reference, then go back and listen to my episode on the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Seriously, go. Listen, it's one of my least listened to episodes, but was one of my favorites to do. Anyways, the Iroquois Theater was located on Randolph Street in Chicago. Randolph Street is Chicago's very own version of Broadway. The eastern end of the theater district just happened to connect with the northern end of the shopping district, which made it very convenient for people on the go in the early 19 hundreds to go out shopping and catch a play, maybe grab some dinner in one of the nearby restaurants that catered to the area.

And closest to State Street stood the Iroquois Theater. With its 52 foot high arched entrance flanked with stone and granite pillars. Its mahogany and glass doors, beckon theatergoers to come inside to its elaborately decorated lobby with its 18 foot high ceilings, paneled with marble, with just subtle touches of antique gold running throughout.

Made an enticing invitation to theatergoers. No need to go further down the street to those other theaters. And in November of 1903, as its very first attraction, it was featuring the musical comedy, Mr. Blue Beard, with a cast of over 300 performers featuring most prominently Eddie Foy. Not only a very popular comedian and Broadway star, but a Chicago boy.

Having grown up in Chicago, it made him one of Chicago's own, and the city loved him. The performers had just gotten off a successful run in New York and stopped and did a few shows on its way to Chicago. Now, theater people are often very superstitious, often freaking out over relatively trivial matters.

They're out of the ordinary, however. No one recognized the small fire at the Cleveland Show, or the even more minor one on opening day in Chicago as an omen of bad things to come, and why would they worry about Chicago? The Iroquois Theater was claimed to be absolutely fireproof after all. Given the city's history with fire, its fire code had been rewritten and updated multiple times, and its fire department was the best in the nation.

In the words of the owner Will Davis and Harry Power, the Iroquois Theater was envisioned to be the most beautiful temple of the drama. They hired a young architect named Benjamin Marshall to bring their vision to life. This self-taught arrogant shithead would complete the initial plans for the Iroquois in July of 1902, but would then fuck around for five months before submitting the finalized plans for approval to get the building permits.

Once they had the permits in hand, they selected the site and construction company, the George F. Fuller Company for their new theater. They were all set to go. Unfortunately, labor problems would strike that would delay construction until summer of 1903. Davis and powers were pissed. They missed out on an entire season of performances.

A lot of money was being lost due to the delays, and the holiday season was fast approaching. Another prime season for theater. The mainframe of the building went up quickly and the interior was set up and ready to be plastered. The plastering would be delayed for weeks, but would take less than a week to complete.

The interior was ready minus the stage. Marshall had been dicking around again and was late submitting the plans for the huge stage the theater would need. It would not be until the end of October before they could put in the elaborate lighting system and start work on the stage and the other decorative touches on the interior.

Davis and powers were still pissed. They knew they'd never make their mid-November opening deadline. They put pressure on the construction company, hard to get shit done and get it done now. They agreed to be done hopefully by November 23rd. They were the 1,724 capacity theaters. First performance was the Monday before Thanksgiving.

In the start of the holiday weekend, its first performance was Mr. Bluebeard, which was a musical comedy based loosely on a folk tale about a nobleman who murders several of his wives, which is also loosely based on either one or two different historical figures. Which figure depends on who you ask. It was either Gilda Ray, a French nobleman, convicted of being a serial killer, or a Brighton King Connier via Curid who murdered his wives when they became pregnant.

The blue beard of the play will be almost nothing like the real life one. The play was three acts long with 11 scene changes involving often elaborate changes to the backdrop, and had a cast of over 280 performers to make up for the time lost due to construction setbacks. The play would run every day, often twice a day.

Ticket prices range from $15 for the fancy box seats all the way down to 35 cents for standing room only hours before the first show. On opening night workers from the construction company were rushing to get the final touches done in the theater. A gas tank near the dressing rooms downstairs exploded setting off a fire.

While the fire was quickly put out without injury and hardly any damage done, it was quickly swept under the rug and went unreported to local fire or city officials. When a carpenter working near the explosion voiced his concerns over this, he would quickly be let go from the construction company. The rest of opening night would go without incident with many of the city's elite and newspaper reporters in attendance to bask in the grandeur of the theater.

The matinee show on December 30th Drew a large crowd, the largest so far in the theater, short history, mostly moms and their kids who had the day off from school for the holidays. Every single seat was sold out. And over 200 standing room only tickets were sold when the play started. The manager, George Dusenberry, made his rounds checking on the ushers and that the gates in the gallery were secured with padlocks.

This was to prevent people from trying to sneak down to the more expensive seats. They would be locked in the gallery until intermission when the gates would be reopened. They would be reelected when the second act began with the theater sold out and nearly 300 performers and a stage crew of 200, the theater held 2300 people in it for the matinee performance.

During the second act, all the lights in the theater were turned off, leaving only one small light to play across the stage, it cast an eerie blue glow. As it illuminated the theater, the light came from a floodlight mounted 15 feet above the stage to the left of the audience. It was a calcium arc light powered by electricity, but it required someone to direct the illumination.

It was mounted on a pedestal with a hood and reflector and encased in a box to prevent. To prevent sparks from falling below the light or blowing onto the scenery. There was an opening in the hood about two inches big for the carbon rod to pass through. This light required 110 volts to work and generated over 4,000 degrees of heat, so it was pretty fucking hot.

And since the light had to be moved around during the performance, the wire had to be movable and was not in any conduit. Conduit like any other wire in the theater. One scene was getting ready to start. Patrick McNulty. The arc light operator set the light where it needed to be in, just up and left it unattended, and of course as soon as he stepped away.

Can you guess what happened? Yep. It sparked, a flash of sparks came from where the wire connected to the lamp. Another ArcLight operator who was not needed at the time, happened to witness the spark shooting out. He watched in horror as a curtain waved nearby. The loose end of the fabric caught fire. The flame quickly ran up and down the length of the curtain and across the other side.

John Farrell, a stage electrician, climbed a ladder. Tried to put out the flames with his hands, burning them badly in the attempt, but to no avail. Other curtains above him caught fire. He tried using a bucket of kill fire, but it blew back in his face temporarily blinding him. He cried out as he came down the ladder slipping and falling to the stage below.

He jumped up, uninjured, and ran to the rear of the stage. Other stage hands rushed in with poles to try to beat the fire out as someone called for an asbestos curtain to be lowered and assistant stage manager William Plunkett pulled the fire alarm. Another person called out for the asbestos curtain, but the man responsible for it did nothing.

The fire was now spreading to the rear of the stage as someone yelled for everyone to run for their lives. While they were calling for the curtain to be lowered, the performance was still going on. The performers were still singing and dancing on stage. Not yet concerned since the curtain had not dropped, but is more burning.

Canvas started to fall. The audience began to panic. Two of the performers addressed the audience to calm them down. They tried to assure the audience. The fire would be quickly under control into everything would be fine. Archie Bernard, the theater's head electrician, was standing at the theater's massive switchboard that controlled all the lights in the theater.

When the fire broke out, when he's seen what was happening on stage, he reached out to turn on all the lights in the theater as he did pieces of burning curtain fell around the switchboard and shorted out fuses. The theater was plunged into darkness. Backstage, the performers were in a panic. Everyone was running around trying to escape the fifth and sixth floor.

Dressing rooms were a madhouse with half dressed performers trying to get out the elevator. Operator could barely see or breathe as he rode the elevator and guided people to it. The smoke was so thick. He had to search out people and guide them to the elevator. By the time they were set to go back down, the elevator was on fire.

He had to reach through the flames to get the elevator to go down. He managed to get them to the main floor of the stage safely. But the lines holding the elevator parted while he was still inside. He started to faint, but luckily a stage hand in the right place at the right time pulled him from the elevator.

60 feet above the stage, four young men who worked in the grid irons were trapped by flames. They had no idea what to do. One of them was far from the others, entrapped in the flames from a burning curtain. He jumped from the scaffolding. The other three would be able to make it down safely. Smoke and sparks were making their way into the main part of the theater.

Musicians in the orchestra. Were trying to tell the people in the front row how to get out. As the conductor called for the orchestra to keep playing one by one, musicians would leave the pit. Fire would soon break out in the pit, causing more to run. Eddie Foy came out to call for the audience to remain calm and not to panic.

Everything was under control. As the fire continued to spread, he would call out for them to walk. Go slow. Everyone will get out. It's fine. Everything's fine. Above him, the cracking of wooden scenery increased. The smoke thickened, the northeast corner of the gallery was blazing. He would make one last appeal to the audience as a burning piece of scenery dropped at his feet and another small piece blew into the auditorium.

The asbestos curtain was finally being lowered, however. One end got caught up as the other end continued to drop. It would stop completely hung up, 10 feet above the stage, stage hands beat at the burning scenery with tarps, but the fire continued to burn. Others climbed into the rigging to get the asbestos curtain unstuck.

They could not. The curtain was completely stuck in place and. Would not budge. There would be no protection from the fire. On stage in the audience, Eddie addressed the audience again asking for calm. No one could hear him over the roar of the fire and the screams from the audience, the conductor and the last member of the orchestra finally fled the pit.

They exited into the passageways backstage. Where four actresses fainted, the conductor would lead them to safety as four other actors carried the Dazed women. The smoke began pouring through the track doors of the stage, cutting off the lights in the basement. Performers would hold hands as they made their way to the basement of the coal cellar.

Some would trip and fall and get trampled, but were helped back up. As they made their way nearby. Firemen and passerbys would help 50 performers escape from the coal cellar. Robert Murray, the theater's engineer. Seeing the fire sweeping through the stage and threatening the entire building feared the fire might cause the furnace to explode.

He made his way down to the boiler room to tell the foreman to shut off the steam and kill the flames as he left. Musicians and chorus girls rushed him panicked because they could not find a way out. The stairs going up, were on fire and impassable, and the basement door was locked. Murray broke the door down and led them through to the same exit the other performers used.

He rushed back inside to make sure everyone else was out. He would rescue one other girl who was paralyzed with fear before he himself made it out upstairs. A crowd was pushing against an. Against an exit door to the outside. However, the door swung inward and with the crowd pushing forward forward, there was no hope of getting it open.

Fortunately, a man passing by outside Peter Quinn, who just happened to have tools on him, managed to unscrew the door and let the pushing crowd stream out. The entire stage was now filled with flames and smoke reaching up to the ceilings. 90 feet above the two emergency skylights in the roof meant to let out smoke and flames were sealed tight.

The fire was trapped in the building. Then someone opened the large freight doors on the north wall of this stage. With two doors open now a large blast of wind swept across the stage with nowhere to go. The wind swept into the auditorium bringing flame and smoke with it in the audience on the main floor of the theater as the fire started and was quickly spreading.

Terror swept through the crowd. The sounds of a thousand footsteps filled the air. People screamed in panic as they were trapped in their seats. Unable to get in the crowded aisleway, panicked theatergoers in the box seats jumped over the rail to the crowd below when they could not get out in their haste to escape.

Women and children would be thrown to the ground and trampled on as men pushed past them. Obviously, they'd never heard of women and children first. People were crushed together in the crowd as they made their way to the lobby and out the doors. Unfamiliar levers on the exit doors would lead people to believe that exits were locked as they were unable to escape.

When they could get out and make their way down the fire escape. The bottom set of stairs was frozen and would not move. People jumped from the fire escapes. People on the ground would try to help break their fall and move people out of the way. One person jumped and landed on three people on the ground trying to get up.

He would get hit by another woman who jumped. Other members of the audience would attempt to make their way out the doors to the lobby only to find them locked. Only one set of doors was unlocked and the crowd was trying to search through it. As others pounded on the locked doors to get out. Eventually glass was broken out so some could slip through.

Others would manage to kick the doors down. Those knocked down in the crowd would scream for help. Some would stop others passed them by. People were crushed and kicked while they were on the ground. The fire department was outside trying to fight its way in against the terror stricken mob. They were able to help pull fallen people to safety.

As the blast of wind carried flame and smoke into the auditorium, it flew directly into the second and third level of seating. The suddenness of the blast caught many of the people there still in their seats, and they would be asphyxiated as the flame sucked, the oxygen from the air. Those who made it out, other seats to look for a way out, struggled to breathe.

Throat's burning clothing and hair either singed or burning. Those who could make it to the stairs were trapped in an unmoving crowd of people. Smoke filled the stairways as the crowd was trapped against the locked doors. No one was able to break these doors down. Many would die as the smoke replaced the oxygen in the stairs.

Those that made it to the grand stair hall would make it to the top of the stairs. Many would stumble and fall. People behind them climbed over the growing pile of bodies. They, in turn would be smothered and crushed by those behind them. Anyone who did manage to make it down to the second level ran into the same problem as those on the second level tried to escape.

More people would fall as more bodies piled up. Anyone able to make it to the bottom would find themselves trapped by the locked gates. As the smoke from the burning stage came pouring in, they would suffocate and create another pile of corpses. Others tried to find different ways out, but would become lost and suffocate when the smoke poured in.

Many tried to get out, the fire escapes. The mob crowded the doors to the outside. Some would push through only to fall from the heights. Others would be unable to get out before suffocating from the smoke. As people pushed out onto the fire escape from the second level, the heavy iron door was left open and blocking the exit from the third level with their escape now blocked, some chose to jump.

People on the ground would find some blankets and hold them out to try to break the fall of those jumping. They saved 20 women before the flames got to be too much for those upstairs to bear. They would die as the flames burst tire. No one else would make it out. It took the fire department almost 15 minutes to be notified there was something wrong.

By law, the theater was supposed to have its own call box for the fire department. It did not A stage hand had to walk to the fire department to tell them something was wrong as news of the fire spread. Men and wagons from the public works were given to assist the fire and police department. More than 100 doctors and nurses dropped what they were doing to head to the theater to assist with the wounded.

The police blocked off the front of the theater to allow for the rescue of the wounded in removal of the dead. The firemen were horrified as they entered the theater and saw the piles of bodies strewn ever strewn. They had to chase off thieves who had snuck in and were looting. The dead doorways were blocked by the dead as they made their way in deeper.

Few survivors called out for help or moaned in pain. The smoke in the theater was still thick, which did not help with the rescue efforts at all. The bodies in the gallery were moved to hallways until they could be carried out. A few firemen outside ran to a store to buy blankets for victims, most of them freezing after fleeing the theater half naked.

Or with burnt clothing. Nearby, merchants sent over more blankets along with linen and cotton to aid with the wounded hardware stores donated lanterns. So rescuers could see in the dark smoke filled theater, the dead and wounded would be carried out to the sidewalk. Before long, they could not keep count of all the bodies coming out.

Doctors waited at the door and examined them all. As they came out, the living were taken away to the hospital as quickly as possible. The hospitals quickly became overcrowded. The dead were left in heaps on the sidewalk and tossed into whatever wagon was handy. Once the wagon was full, they would be taken to a mortuary.

With so many wounded and so few ambulances, many of the nearby stores and hotels opened up to be temporary shelters for the wounded. Marshall Fields would be used as a temporary hospital. Many more of the wounded would not make it through the night. The doctors did what they could to save as many of them as possible.

In the end, 602 people lost their lives in the fire. The city was in a state of shock and mourning. The fire was a wake up call heard around the nation to stop the fear of a similar disaster happening elsewhere. Crackdowns nationwide went into effect with multiple theaters being shut down for numerous violations.

Some of the owners would be arrested over this. Others would be severely fined. Calls for tougher safety regulations and enforcement were heard around the nation. New regulations would be put into place to try to avoid another disaster. The fire even affected England and the rest of Europe as they started to put new regulations into place.

Also. So what did they say caused the disaster panic. All the deaths came from people running amuck. If they would've just exited calmly, this never would've happened. Surely it had nothing to do with the lock gates and doors or the unmarked fire exits or the doors that no one could figure out how to open.

Or the other numerous safety violations, safety violations that ran rampant through the theater. You know, like exit doors that opened inwards instead of out. Or the fact that the theater had no sprinkler system at all. Uh, the pipes on stage fitted for hoses, had no hoses or water. The water supply system had not even been completely installed.

They had no basic fire equipment. Uh, not even a pae of water near the stage or a backup electrical system was not in place in case something went wrong with the main switchboard or no kind of fire training was provided to anyone, you know, no fire drills, nothing. None of that mattered. The disaster was all caused by panic and one prominent New York theater owner even blamed it on women and children.

In the end, no one would take responsibility for the disaster. It was always someone else's fault. Everyone pushed responsibility onto someone else. And after numerous investigations, manslaughter charges would be filed, but after years of court delays and legal maneuvering, the charges would be dropped, lawsuits filed by victims'.

Families would be drug out so long that they could not afford to keep them up. So those would be dropped. No one would face any serious repercussions from the tragedy.

That was the Iroquois Theater Fire, A terrible tragedy that led to widespread changes in fire regulations and safety features, some of which are still in use today. Thanks for listening, and if you like the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your app of choice. Or reach out to the show at history is a disaster.

At gmail.com or through social media with comments or suggestions or even better share the episode 'cause sharing is caring and if there is more caring in the world, maybe history wouldn't be a disaster. Thanks and goodbye.