"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 Berien children were among the first to reach the offices of the
Hallwood company after the fire broke out. By some chance they had made
their way out uninjured. The story of their plight touched a stranger, who
took them to a railway station and bought them tickets to their home in
Aurora. One was about 14 and the other about 9 years old.
FINDS HIS DAUGHTER.
One young woman, terrified but uninjured, had found her way to this office
and was sitting in a frightened stupor, when an elderly man hurried in
from the street.
"Have you seen--" he started to ask, and then, catching sight of the
forlorn little figure, he stopped. With a glad cry, father and daughter
rushed into each other's arms, and the father bore his child away. Their
names were not learned.
James Sullivan of Woodstock was probably the last man who got out of the
parquet uninjured. With him was George Field, also of Woodstock, and the
two fought their way out together.
MR. FIELD'S NARRATIVE.
"We were seated in the twelfth row," said Mr. Field, "when we saw fire at
the top of the proscenium arch. At the same time some sparks fell on the
stage.
"Eddie Foy came out and told the audience not to be afraid, to avoid a
panic, and there would be no trouble. While he was speaking, however, a
burning brand fell alongside of him, and then came what looked like a huge
globe of fire. The moment it struck the stage fire spread everywhere.
"The panic started at once and everybody rushed for the doors. Sullivan
and I were in the rear of the fleeing mass and made our way out as best we
could without getting mixed up in the panic. As long as the women and
children were struggling through the straight aisles there was not so much
trouble except that some of the fugitives fell to the floor and had to be
helped on their feet again. At times the women and children would be
lying four deep on the floor of the aisles, and in several instances we
had to set them on their feet before we could go further. There was not
much smoke and had the aisles been straight to the entrances every one
could have got out practically unhurt.
"But when it came to the turns where they focus into the lobby the poor
women and children were piled up into indiscriminate heaps. The screams
and cries they uttered were something terrible. It was an impossibility to
allay the panic and the frightened people simply trampled on those in
front of them.
"Some of the people in the orchestra chairs immediately in front of the
stage must have been burned by the fire. The fire darted directly among
them and the chairs began burning at once. Those on this floor far enough
in the rear to escape these flames would have been all right except for
the crush of the panic.
"Sullivan, who was with me, was the last man out of the orchestra chairs
who was not injured. Whoever was behind us must have been suffocated or
burned to death. How many there were I have no means of knowing."
NARROW ESCAPES OF YOUNG AND OLD.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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