The Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903: A Dire Prediction

The Iroquois Theater as it appeared on its opening day, November 23, 1903



"BURNED ALIVE: Hundreds of Charred and Distorted Corpses."
-The Chicago Times, Front Page Headline, February 13, 1875


While graphic headlines are commonplace and almost overlooked in newspapers of today, this headline and the morbidly descriptive article which followed was a type of journalism nearly unheard of at the end of the 19th century. The article, which went on to describe a massive fire in a Chicago theater, reported that shrieks could be heard from everywhere in the building as people [1] "fell [from balconies] to be trampled into eternity by the heels of the wild rushing throng." Many of those who were not burned alive or overcome by smoke were crushed to death. The local morgue reportedly had "rows of dead bodies" waiting to be identified by family members. The death toll was staggering.

The ghastly article, which took up a prominent amount of space, both on the front page and continuing further inside the pages of the Chicago Times, described the despair of families and the shock of seeing the smoldering ruins of the devastated theater. It was enough to make even the strong-hearted faint.

The story, however, was fake. It was a carefully written and placed warning to a city that had already been plagued with deadly fires, including the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which killed hundreds and burned for a full two days, and the July, 1874 fire which wiped out ninety acres of homes and businesses in the city.

It was no accident that the article's author had chosen a theater for the setting of his fictitious work. For a few astute citizens had come to realize and become vocally critical of the city's public buildings, and theaters in particular, as being deathtraps waiting to happen. Vaguely-written building codes, lax enforcement of laws and standards, and rampant bribery and corruption within the building inspector's office had lead some to conclude that the public was in grave danger.

It appeared, though, that while the phony article caused a stir for a few days, it did little to shake the general public's confidence. For a city that had seen so much fire devastation, it was a wonder that most did not boycott local theaters.

In the end, the writer of the article was ominously on target in his prediction. It was only eight years later that the Iroquois Theater of Chicago burned down in such a fashion that one wondered if the writer of the 1874 news story didn't have the powers of a clairvoyant.



NEXT WEEK: The "Fireproof" Iroquois Theater

[1] Brandt, Nat. Chicago Death Trap: The Iroquois Theater Fire of 1903. Southern Illinois University, 2003.