Pushing for an Opening: Iroquois Theater Management Overlook Basic Fire Safety Precautions

The opening of the new, state-of-the-art Iroquois Theater had originally been slated for the spring of 1904. However, two factors were at play to push the Grand Opening to late 1903 instead. First was the quintessential problem of business owners everywhere... the longer it takes to build, the more money that's being spent without generating any kind of an income. Anxious theater owners hoped to take advantage of Christmas spenders, especially those who came to the big city from outlying areas. Many visitors enjoyed taking an early train into Chicago for a morning of shopping and capping it off with an afternoon at a nearby theater.

The second reason had to do with the politics of theater in general. A merging of three major theatrical booking companies led to one new super-company: The Theatrical Syndicate. This merger meant that the three partners could combine their routes and attract the best productions, since production companies would be guaranteed a full run of showings. It also meant less travelling time between locations for travelling production companies, thus more profits for owners rather than overhead for travel costs.

Eventually, the syndicate began producing its own shows: a lucrative deal since they could collect both the producer's and the booking agent's fee portions of ticket sales. The Theatrical Syndicate became a powerful player in the theatrical entertainment industry, which was becoming more and more competitive. It began producing more elaborate shows with large, complicated sets that required spacious venues. Thus evolved the plans for the Iroquois Theater, which would be the biggest and best in Chicago. It also "guaranteed the syndicate a presence in Chicago."[1]

The syndicate's latest production, Mr. Bluebeard had begun to tour during the construction of the Iroquois. Mr. Bluebeard had a company of over 100 actors and actresses and numerous backdrops, set changes and props. The Iroqouis Theater was the perfect venue to host the show, particularly during the Christmas rush. The trouble was: the Iroquois wasn't going to be finished until the following spring.

The need for a large venue combined with the desire to turn a profit caused syndicate owners to put pressure on Iroquois owners to rush through the last stages of building. And so it was that the Iroquois Theater opened on November 23, 1903, several months ahead of schedule, and just in time to entertain all of those Christmas shoppers.

Some deemed it miraculous that the Iroquois' owners were able to pull it off. However, many basic safety precautions were either overlooked or deliberately ignored in order to open by the end of November, 1903. It was these "oversights," corruption in the city inspectors offices, and poor building design that directly contributed to the Iroquois Theater tragedy.

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

The "Fireproof" Iroquois Theater

The cover of the Iroquois' Playbill, proclaiming the theater to be "Absolutely Fireproof."


When the Iroquois Theater first opened on November 23, 1903, its first playbill was printed with the exclamation that the Iroquois was "Absolutely Fireproof." This was quite an astounding claim, one that theater patrons might have questioned, had they realized that the Iroquois had originally not been slated to be opened until the spring 1904. Instead, eager (or, some might argue, greedy) theater owners pulled strings, pushed bribes, hassled contractors, and had the Iroquois' opening day pushed up by several months, just in time to take advantage of holiday spending.

In fact, contractors were still putting the finishing touches on the theater when it opened its doors to ticket holders on November 23. Despite this, the first few weeks of operation seemed to sail along with nary a major glitch.

It's likely that Iroquois management found it necessary to include the reference to the "fireproof" nature of the premises in deference to two other notorious theater fires which may have been on the minds of ticket holders. One happened in Brooklyn, New York in 1876, claiming approximately 300 lives. The other occured in Vienna, Austria just five years later. It claimed over 800 lives.

Fire hazards aside, theaters had something of a nefarious reputation anyway. Theater-going was looked upon by conservative folk and religious adherents of the time as being frivolous and a shameful waste of money. Actors and actresses were considered an unsavory and unwholesome bunch, certainly not a type of people to be consorted with.

Finally, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was still on the minds of those who had been around long enough to remember it. The fire wiped out miles of the city's downtown, destroying businesses and some homes.

But in the subsequent thirty plus years, the city had managed to make a grand comeback. During its planning stages, the Iroquois was promised to become the most opulent and state of the art theater that Chicago had ever seen.

So the reference to its "Absolutely Fireproof" interior was management's way of assuring patrons that there was no need to worry, only to enjoy the fine furnishings and quality entertainment. What the Iroquois failed to do was to include in its playbill a diagram of the interior layout of the theater, clearly denoting all doors and emergency exits as was explicitly required by law. It seems as though they must have felt there was no need to waste the ink. After all, the building was "fireproof."

Unfortunately, this glaring omission was only one (and certainly not the first) of many oversights (whether accidental or deliberate) which would eventually lead to tragedy.

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.