
The Iroquois Theatre was much acclaimed, even before it opened. In addition to being "absolutely fireproof," it was a beautiful place with an ornate lobby, grand staircases, and a front facade that resembled a Greek temple with massive columns. The theatre was designed to be safe. It had 25 exits that, it was claimed, could empty the building in less than five minutes. The stage had also been fitted with an asbestos curtain that could be quickly lowered to protect the audience. All of this would have been impressive it had actually been installed and if the staff actually had any idea how to use the safety devices that existed.
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A view of the stage from the balcony, showing the devastation of the fire. |

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A photograph was taken from the stage of the fire-blackened theatre. |

A few moments later, a flaming set crashed down onto the stage, leaving little doubt that something had gone wrong. A stagehand attempted to lower the asbestos curtain that would protect the audience. It snagged halfway down, sending a wall of flame out into the audience.
Actors on stage panicked and ran for the doors. Chaos filled the auditorium as the audience began rushing for the theatre's Randolph Street entrance. With children in tow, the audience members immediately clogged the gallery and the upper balconies. The aisles had become impassable and as the lights went out, the crowd milled about in blind terror. The auditorium began to fill with heat and smoke and screams echoed off the walls and ceilings. Through it all, the mass continued to move forward but when the crowd reached the doors, they could not open them. The doors had been designed to swing inward rather than outward.
The crush of people prevented those in the front from opening the doors. Many of those who died not only burned but suffocated from the smoke and the crush of bodies. Later, as the police removed the charred remains from the theatre, they discovered that a number of victims had been trampled in the panic. One dead woman's face even bore the mark of a shoe heel.
Backstage, theatre employees and cast members opened a rear set of double doors, which sucked the wind inside and caused flames to fan out under the asbestos curtain and into the auditorium. A second gust of wind created a fireball that shot out into the galleries and balconies that were filled with people. All of the stage drops were now on fire and as they burned, they engulfed the supposedly noncombustible asbestos curtain and when it collapsed, it plunged into the seats of the theatre.
The fire burned for almost 15 minutes before an alarm was raised at a box down the street. From the outside, there appeared to be nothing wrong. It was so quiet that the first firefighters to arrive thought it was a false alarm.
This changed when they tried to open the auditorium doors and found they could not—there were too many bodies stacked up against them. They were only able to gain access by actually pulling the bodies out of the way with pike poles, peeling them off one another, and then climbing over the stacks of corpses. It took only 10 minutes to put out the blaze, as the intense heat inside had already eaten up anything that would still burn. The firefighters made their way into the blackened auditorium and were met with only silence and the smell of death. They called out for survivors but no one answered their cry.
The gallery and upper balconies sustained the greatest loss of life as the patrons had been trapped by locked doors at the top of the stairways. The firefighters found 200 bodies stacked there, as many as 10 deep. Those who escaped had literally ripped the metal bars from the front of the balcony and had jumped onto the crowds below. Even then, most of these met their deaths at a lower level.
A few who made it to the fire escape door behind the top balcony found that the iron staircase was missing. In its place was a platform that plunged about 100 feet to the cobblestone alley below. Across the alley, behind the theatre, painters were working on a building occupied by Northwestern University's dental school. When they realized what was happening at the theatre, they quickly erected a makeshift bridge using ladders and wooden planks, which they extended across the alley to the fire escape platform. Reports vary as to how many they saved, but several people managed to climb across the bridge.



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This view is of the outside the Iroquois Theatre was taken after 4:00 PM on December 30, 1903. |
To make matters worse, the management also established a policy to keep non-paying customers from slipping into the theatre during a performance -- they quietly bolted nine pairs of iron panels over the rear doors and installed padlocked, accordion-style gates at the top of the interior second and third-floor stairway landings. And just as tragic was the idea they came up with to keep the audience from being distracted during a show. They ordered all of the exit lights to be turned off.
The investigation led to a cover-up by officials from the city and the fire department, who denied all knowledge of fire code violations. They blamed the inspectors, who had overlooked the problems in exchange for free theatre passes. A grand jury indicted a number of individuals, including the theatre owners, fire officials and even the mayor. No one was ever charged with a criminal act. Families of the dead filed nearly 275 civil lawsuits against the theatre but no money was ever collected.
The Iroquois Fire still ranks today as one of the deadliest in history. Nevertheless, the building was repaired and re-opened briefly in 1904 as Hyde and Behmann's Music Hall and then in 1905 as the Colonial Theatre.
In 1924, the building was razed to make room for a new theatre, the Oriental, but the facade of the Iroquois was used in its construction. The Oriental operated at what is now 24 West Randolph Street until the middle part of 1981 when it fell into disrepair and was closed down. It opened again as the home to a wholesale electronics dealer for a time and then went dark again. The restored theatre is now part of the Civic Tower Building and is next door to the restored Delaware Building.
It reopened as the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre in 1998; however, it is commonly called simply the Oriental Theatre.
But this has not stopped the tales of the old Iroquois Theatre from being told, especially in light of more recent -- and more ghostly events. According to recent accounts from people who live and work in this area, "Death Alley" is not as empty as it appears to be. The narrow passageway, which runs behind the Oriental Theatre, is rarely used today, except for the occasional delivery truck or a pedestrian who is in a hurry to get somewhere else. It is largely deserted, but why? The stories say that those a few who do pass through the alley often find themselves very uncomfortable and unsettled here. They say that faint cries are sometimes heard in the shadows and that some have reported being touched by unseen hands and by eerie cold spots that seem to come from nowhere and vanish just as quickly.
Could the alleyway, and the surrounding area, actually be haunted? And do the spirits of those who met their tragic end inside of the burning theatre still linger here? Perhaps, or perhaps the strange sensations experienced here are "ghosts of the past" of another kind. A chilling remembrance of a terrifying event that will never be completely forgotten.
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Iroquois Theatre Memorial at the Montrose Cemetery, 5400 North Pulaski Road, Chicago, Illinois. |
Contributor, Troy Taylor
Free PDF Book: The Great Chicago Theatre Disaster, the Complete Story Told by the Survivors, by Marshall Everett, published in 1904.
Free PDF Book: The Great Chicago Theatre Disaster, the Complete Story Told by the Survivors, by Marshall Everett, published in 1904.
Incredible story about Chicago’s infamy of graft, corruption and pointing fingers to others. It’s amazing no one went to prison, no one was forced to pay any of the survivors or perished people’s families any fines.
ReplyDeleteso sad, but an interesting read...thanks
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