"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
"The doors were open when we got there, but I cannot help but feel that if
we had started sooner we would not have got to those doors. If we had
waited longer we certainly would not have got through. My ears are still
not healed from the burning they got. My nose was burned, and my
sister-in-law's bandages have not been removed from her face yet, she was
burned so bad, and it was all from hot air coming from that stage.
"On the first landing from the exit we went out of, evidently two ladies
had turned and were coming up the fire escape, instead of going the other
way, they were so confused. I told them to turn and go down. They did not
until I reached them and I took hold of one lady and turned her around and
started her down and pushed the shutter back against the wall--I remember
that very distinctly--and then we went on down and when I got to the foot
of the escape I turned my child over to my wife and went back for my
sister-in-law and crowded my way up between the people by keeping to the
extreme outside railing, and got up probably to the first landing and
found her coming down.
"It is my impression that the curtain that was lowered was burned. I know
that when the party playing the part of "Bluebeard" was out there he kept
those girls dancing until one of them fainted, and they lifted her up, and
I thought it was the most heroic thing I ever saw, those girls remaining
there with the fire dropping all about them and still dancing in an effort
to quiet the audience. The draft was something fearful. It carried the
fire with it. The flames came clear out over the parquet, and so much so
that after I started up those steps we didn't dare to look back."
MR. MEMHARD'S DIFFICULT EXIT.
Albert A. Memhard, 750 Greenleaf avenue, Rogers Park, Chicago:
"I attended the matinee performance at the Iroquois, December 30, 1903. I
was sitting in section A, the tenth seat in the first row in the first
balcony or dress circle on the north side of the house, and on the right
hand with reference to the stage. I was between two aisles just about the
middle of the section. I was there before the orchestra started to play
and saw the curtain go up before the first act and the same curtain come
down and then be raised before the second act. I was in company with a
theater party made up of Mr. Gurnsey, who is employed at the same store as
myself, and our families. Soon after the second act started we saw, almost
all of us at about the same time, sparks of fire coming from the left hand
corner of the stage, perhaps eight feet from the top, but we sat still
until it began to come out in flames, the flames dropping on the stage.
Then we started out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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