"Lest We Forget": Chicago's Awful Theater HorrorEverett, Marshall
History
"Lest We Forget": Chicago's Awful Theater Horror
Everett, Marshall
Iroquois Theater, Chicago -- Fire, 1903; Theaters -- Fires and fire prevention
Willis Cooper was one of the best known men in Kenosha. He was the
secretary of the great Twentieth Century movement in the Methodist
Episcopal Church which resulted in $20,000,000 being raised for missions.
He was last year the prohibition candidate for governor of Wisconsin, and
was recently elected head of the lay delegation of the Wisconsin churches
at the general conference of the Methodist Church. Mr. Cooper was a
millionaire, and his gifts to church charities often exceeded $10,000 a
year. In Kenosha he was the general manager of the Chicago Kenosha Hosiery
Works, the largest stocking making plant in the world.
Charles F. Cooper, his brother, was the factory manager and general
salesman of the company. He was the president of the Kenosha
Manufacturers' Association, of the Kenosha Hospital Association, and the
Masonic Temple Association. He was the founder of profit-sharing in the
Kenosha plant, and under his direction it became known as the plant "where
the life of the worker is flooded with sunshine." He was most popular with
the working classes in Kenosha, and when his body was taken to the morgue
hundreds of men and women stood with uncovered heads while it passed.
There occurred between the acts at the Century theater, St. Louis, on New
Year's night, an unusual incident, when C. H. Congdon, of Chicago, arose
from his seat and related incidents of the Iroquois theater tragedy.
He had proceeded only for a few minutes when some one in the audience
began singing "Nearer, My God, to Thee," which was immediately taken up by
the whole audience, the orchestra joining in with the accompaniment.
CHAPTER XV.
SOCIETY WOMEN AND GIRLS' CLUBS.
Miss Charlotte Plamondon, daughter of the vice-president of the Chicago
board of education, who waited until the fire had caught in the curtains
over the front box, in which she sat, before attempting to get out,
related her experience at the Chicago Beach Hotel:
"I can't tell you how I escaped the awful fate of others," she said. "I
only know that when the flames began to crackle over my head and dart down
from the curtains of our box I leaped over the railing of the box and fell
in the arms of some man. I think he was connected with the theater, for he
immediately set me down in a seat and told me to be quiet for a moment.
SCREAMS OF TERROR HEARD.
"Then I think I lost all reason. I have a vague recollection of having
been pushed up along the side aisle that runs by the boxes. It was as
quiet as death for a moment. The great audience rose like a single person,
but no sound escaped it until those in front were wedged in the doorway.
Then a scream of terror went up that I shall never forget. It rings in my
ears now. Women screamed and children cried. Men were shouting and rushing
for the entrance, leaping over the prostrate forms of children and women
and carrying others down with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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