"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
Among the first to arrive at Jordan's were George E. McCaughan, attorney
for the Chicago & Rock Island railroad, 6565 Yale avenue, who came in
search of his daughter, Helen, who had attended a theater party with other
young women. A friend had been in Dearborn street when the fire started
and soon after had discovered in Thompson's restaurant the body of Miss
McCaughan. He attached a card bearing her name to the body, and, leaving
it in the custody of a physician, went to the telephone to notify the
father. When he returned to the restaurant the body already had been
removed and the friend and the father searched last night without finding
it.
As it grew later the crowd around the doors increased, but almost every
one was turned away. It would have been impossible for persons to have
passed through the long rooms for the purpose of inspecting the bodies,
they were so close together. Women came weeping to the doors of the
undertaking shop and beat upon the glass, only to be referred to the city
hall or told "to come back in the morning."
Later it was learned that physicians would be admitted for the purpose of
inspecting and identifying the dead, and many persons came accompanied by
their family doctors for that purpose. Two women, who pressed by the
officer at the door, sank half fainting into chairs in the outer office.
They were looking for Miss Hazel J. Brown, of 94 Thirty-first street, and
Miss Eloise G. Swayze, of Fifty-sixth street and Normal avenue. A single
glance at the long lines of bodies stretched on the floor was enough to
satisfy them. They were told to return in the morning or to send their
family physician to make the identification.
"The poor girls had come from the convent to spend the holiday vacation,"
sobbed one of the women.
During the evening the telephone bell constantly was ringing, and persons
whose relatives had failed to return on time were asked for information.
"Have you found a small heart-shaped locket set with a blue stone?" would
come a call over the wire, and the answer would be, "We can tell nothing
about that until morning."
At Rolston's undertaking rooms were 182 bodies, lying four rows deep in
the rear of 18 Adams street and three rows deep in the rear of 22 Adams
street.
On the floors, tagged with the numerals of the coroner's scheme for
identification, were bodies of men, women, and children awaiting
identification. One was that of a little girl with yellow hair in a tangle
of curls around her face. She appeared as if she slept. A silk dress of
blue was spread over her and the sash of white ribbon scarcely was soiled.
Over the long lines of the dead the police hovered in the search for
identifying marks and for valuables. Most of the bodies were partly
covered with blankets.
Outside a big crowd surged and struggled with the police. Not till 10
o'clock were the doors opened. Then Coroner Traeger arrived, and in groups
of twelve or fifteen the crowd was permitted to pass through the doors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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