Chicago's Awful Theater Horror Part 12

PULLS WOMEN FROM Ma.s.s ON FLOOR.

"As we got by the ma.s.s on the floor I turned and caught hold of the arms of a woman who was lying near the bottom pinned down by the weight resting on her feet. I managed to pull her out, and I think she got down in safety. One of the men with me also pulled out another woman from the heap. I tried to rescue a man who was also caught by the feet, but, although I braced myself against the stairs, I was unable to move him.

"I came in from Apple River to see the sights in Chicago, and I have seen all I can stand."

Six little girls from Evanston, in a party occupying seats in the parquet, escaped by the side entrance. In the crush they lost most of their clothing. Four of the children stayed together, the other two being for the time lost in the street. The four were Hannah Gregg, 12 years old, 1038 Sheridan road; Florence and May Lang, 14 and 13 years old, Buena Park; Beatrice Moore, 12 years old, Buena Park.

CHAPTER VI.

HEROES OF THE FIRE.

One of the heroes of the Iroquois theater fire was Peter Quinn, chief special agent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad system, who a.s.sisted in saving the lives of 100 or more of the performers. But for the prompt service of Quinn and two citizens who a.s.sisted him it is believed that most of the performers would have met the fate of the victims in the theater proper.

Mr. Quinn had attended a trial in the Criminal court and in the middle of the afternoon started for the downtown district, intending to proceed to his office. Reaching Randolph and Dearborn streets the railroad official had his attention attracted to a man who rushed from the theater bare-headed and without his coat. What followed Quinn describes as follows:

"The actions of the man and the fact that he was without coat and hat attracted my attention and I watched him through curiosity. He ran so swiftly that he collided with several pedestrians, and I saw him rush toward a policeman on the street crossing. He said something to the policeman and then I saw the bluecoat rush excitedly away. My curiosity was then aroused to such an extent that I followed the young man who ran into the alley in the rear of the theater. He disappeared there and I was about to go on my way when my attention was attracted to the door leading upon the stage.

"As I pa.s.sed I heard a commotion and saw the door was slightly open, and, peeping into the opening, I asked what was the trouble. Then, for the first time, I learned that the theater was on fire. A number of strangers arrived at the door about the same time.

"The players, men, women, and children, had rushed to this small trap-door for escape, got caught in a solid ma.s.s, and were so firmly wedged together that they could not move. They were banked solidly against the little door, and it could not be opened. Nearly all of the players were in their stage costumes.

"The women screamed and begged us to rescue them, and the cries of the children could be heard above the hoa.r.s.e shouts of the men. I did not realize it at that moment, but it develops that the players were in the same position as the unfortunates who met death in the front end of the house.

"Had we been unable to get that trap-door open when we did every member of that struggling crowd of men, women and children, would have perished where they stood, too tightly wedged together to permit even a slight struggle against death.

"n.o.body at that time had the slightest idea of the serious state of affairs. We tried to force the door open, but the crowd was banked up too tightly against it. I shouted through the opening and commanded those in the rear to step back far enough to permit the door to be opened. It was like talking to empty s.p.a.ce, however, and for a few moments we stood there helpless and without any means to a.s.sist those in distress.

"Then came a volume of smoke, and far in the rear of the crowd we could see the illumination from the flames. I had a number of small tools in my pocket, and immediately proceeded to remove the metal attachments which held the door in place. This was accomplished with some difficulty, and then we managed to force the crowd back probably an inch, but that was sufficient. The door was then permitted to drop from its place, and one by one the imprisoned players were a.s.sisted into the alley.

"They were then in scanty costumes, but were quickly a.s.sisted to places of shelter. Even when the last player and stage hand had reached the alley we could not realize the awfulness of what had happened. I walked in upon the stage and found it a seething furnace. The players had been rescued just in time. A minute later and the flames and smoke would have reached the imperiled ones, and they would have been suffocated or burned where they stood."

THE PILES OF DEAD IN THE GALLERY.

William ("Smiling") Corbett was one of the first to penetrate the smoke and reach the balcony and gallery of the theater where the most fearful loss of life occurred. Charley Dexter, the Boston National league player, and Frank Houseman, the old Chicago second baseman, went to his a.s.sistance.

Corbett was stopped by a fear-frenzied little woman, who begged him to save her two children.

"They're up in the gallery," she cried.

Corbett made a dash for the balcony entrance on the right.

"Don't go up there," admonished some of the firemen about; "you'll get hemmed in."

Corbett groped his way onward and upward, stumbling over bodies lying prostrate on the staircase, and finally reached the gallery entrance.

"There they were," said Corbett afterward. "Positively the most sickening spectacle I ever saw. They were piled up in bunches, in all manner of disarray. I grabbed for the topmost body, a girl about 6 years old.

Catching her by the wrist I felt the flesh curl up under my grasp. I hurried down with the little one, then back again, each time with the body of a child.

"I then realized that no good could come of any further effort. Everybody was stark dead. I turned away and fled. I never again want to go near the place."

EDDIE FOY'S HEROISM.

Eddie Foy, leading comedian in "Mr. Bluebeard," said:

"I was in my dressing room, one tier up off the stage, when I smelled smoke. The 'Moonlight ballet' was on, and it was three minutes before the time for my entrance on the first scene of the second act.

"I looked up and immediately over me, in the left first entrance, I saw sparks and a small cloud of smoke. The members of the company and of the chorus had already started off the stage. My eldest boy, Bryan, was standing under the light bridge in the first entrance, and, taking him by the hand, I turned him over to one of the stage hands with orders to get him out of the theater. In less time than it takes to tell it, the little wreath of smoke and the tiny sparks had grown in volume. The smoke and some of the sparks had already made their way into the main part of the house, curling down and around the lower edge of the proscenium arch.

"I looked at the house through an opening, and that was enough. I tried to appear as calm as possible under the conditions, realizing what a stampede would mean. Just what I said I cannot for the life of me now recall. In effect, though, this is about it:

"'Ladies and gentlemen, there is no danger. Don't get excited. Walk out calmly.'

"Between each breath, and these were coming in short, sharp gasps, I kept yelling out from the corner of my lips: 'Lower that iron curtain; drop the fire curtain!'

"The balcony and gallery were packed with women and children, and fully aware of what was in store for these hapless ones, my heart sank.

"The cracking of the timbers above increased. The smoke was growing more dense. I knew the material aloft--flimsy, dry linens, parched canvas, and paint-coated tapestries and drops.

"Without raising my voice to a pitch calculated to alarm, and yet unmistakably urgent in its appeal, I repeated: 'Get out--get out slowly.'

"The northeast corner of the fly gallery was now a furnace. Just as I made the last appeal to the balcony and the gallery a fiercely blazing ember dropped at my feet. Another, a smaller one, was caught in the draft and forced out into the theater proper.

"'Drop the fire curtain,' I shouted again, looking in vain for it to come down. I know that not a soul in the theater proper would be in danger if this was done. The switchboard was there--but no one to work it. I cried out for Carleton, our stage manager. He was gone. I called for 'Pete,' one of the electricians. He, too, was gone.

"'Does any one know how this iron curtain is worked?' I yelled at the mob of fleeing stage hands, members of the company, property men, and musicians. Not an answer.

"At the first sign of danger, after reaching the footlights, I said to Dillea, our orchestra leader:

"'An overture, Herbert, an overture.'

"Dillea--G.o.d bless him, his ranks already thinning out in the orchestra pit--struck up the 'Sleeping Beauty and the Beast' overture. Of the thirty odd musicians in the pit not over half a dozen remained to follow Dillea and his baton. But the little fellow, ashen pale, his eyes glued on the raging ma.s.s of flame above, never whimpered. He kept right on, and only left his post when the flames drove him away from his leader's stand.

When Dillea disappeared down the opening in the orchestra pit half of the lower floor had been emptied. This I noticed only in an aside, for my eyes were fastened on the sea of agonized, distracted little ones in the balcony and gallery."

AN ELEVATOR BOY HERO.

The bottom of the elevator shaft in the doomed theater was a scene of pandemonium when the stage hands tried to get the girls out. Archie Barnard headed the chain gang and behind him were J. R. O'Mally, Arthur Hart and William Price. As soon as the women reached the floor they began to run wild, and had to be caught and tossed from one man to another. The women in the first tier of dressing rooms were the first down and they were helped out without much trouble.

On his second trip up with the elevator young Robert Smith ascended into an atmosphere that was so thick with smoke that he could not see or breathe. He found one of the girls on the sixth floor and then took on another load from the fifth. By the time he had come down with these, the flames and smoke were threatening the men in the chain. The clothing of Barnard and William Price was on fire and their hair was burning.

Nevertheless they threw the girls out and waited for the third load.