The Iroquois Theatre Fire, Part 3: The Aftermath
Ms. Schalt will die William Patten will die Susan Beale aged 16 will die Richard Emmalang, stagehand, will die. In the days after the fire, Chicago newspapers would run headlines like these. Before the times of the internet or television, newspapers served as the only means to inform the public about the death toll, injuries, and critically injured. We worked on the fire in the gallery for ten or fifteen minutes.
Tim Coleman:Then we got a lamp, looked around to see if we could find anybody alive in the first gallery. Bodies were all together in the first aisle, outside of the door, as far back as the center aisle. Captain Edward Buckley, Chicago Fire Department, Engine Company thirty two. With the smell of smoke, steam, and charred human remains heavy in the air, officials began the investigation as to why this fireproof theatre failed to protect nearly one out of every three persons in attendance that day. In this episode, Tyler J.
Tim Coleman:Thomas, Jeff Moss, and I, Tim Coleman, will tell you what contributed to the massive loss of life, and how locksmithing and door hardware changed as a result of it. This is The Three Tumblers.
Tyler J. Thomas:As we have previously stated, all attempts at accuracy have been made. Few official public records remain and news reports of the day vary wildly.
Tim Coleman:Also, this episode contains depictions of death caused by fire, including the deaths of children. While we have limited these details, we felt that some were important to include in order to bring light to the victims of this tragedy and to tell their story.
Jeff Moss:This is part three of the Iroquois Theatre Fire series. If you have not yet listened to parts one and two, please go back and do that now.
Tim Coleman:Firefighters arrived on the scene around 03:30 that cold afternoon, with steamers set up in the Couchplace Alley, Dearborn Street, and in front of the main entrance on Randolph Street. Entering the structure wearing the leather turnout coats of the time and carrying hoses that would be carrying water at volume and pressure considered completely inadequate today, these men managed to knock down the flames and control the fire. Modern firefighters have high intensity flashlights that mount on their helmets, but in 1903, the fire department had only the light from open candles or kerosene handlamps. Buildings
Tyler J. Thomas:that
Tim Coleman:have burned are always very dark, even if they burn during the day. When you couple that darkness along with lingering smoke, it makes seeing anything especially difficult. Only eight days before the fire was the winter solstice, or shortest day of the year in 1903. With other buildings surrounding the Iroquois Fire, limited daylight, and being inside of a large structure with only candles for light, rescuers had to grope around in the darkness for limbs in order to pull out
Jeff Moss:victims. I
Tim Coleman:don't know if either of y'all have ever seen a body that was burned to death, but it's horrible. Imagine a roast that was left too long over an open fire. The skin slips off of it. The smell is so horrible. It's kind of a combination of burnt human hair and burnt meat.
Tim Coleman:I mean, just this really greasy smell. It's really hard to actually recognize it. People who have died in house fires have actually been stepped on by firefighters because it's just completely unrecognizable, what's left of
Tyler J. Thomas:researching how body identification occurred in the early twentieth century. Except for DNA analysis, it's pretty much the same means and methods of today. When they didn't have definitive identification, they were utilizing the same things we are today, dental records and something I just learned about called anthropometry, which is basically a tool used for body identification that utilizes measurements of the individual, femurs, arms, whatever it may be. If you ever heard about like an unknown body discovered where they can give a pretty detailed representation of that person's height, weight, and age at the time of death using basically just bones, that's largely discerned through that anthropometry. And you may think, oh, well, people told friends and family they were gonna go see Mr.
Tyler J. Thomas:Bluebeard, and then they didn't come home. Well, that's proof positive that they're one of the bodies. But even in that case, you likely have dozens, if not hundreds of deceased individuals that fit that criteria, and they still need to be identified so that they can be given a proper burial. I mean, two weeks ago, almost twenty two years to the day, they were able to identify two additional victims of nine eleven. So even today, with tremendous technology and knowledge at our disposal, it's not as cut and dry as you might think.
Tim Coleman:Many of the victims were trampled or crushed to death. One report even included details details of an infant found dead in a corner of the balcony, with all his clothes ripped off by people running over it. The jam of people coming out was so great that the firemen were unable to force their way in. It met a mob of people rushing down from the balcony. They were filling up the stairs and being trampled.
Tim Coleman:Before this, hundreds must have met their death, their maddened efforts to escape. Chief Fire Marshal Bill Musham. Pittsburgh Press, thirty first December nineteen oh three. Amazingly, a number of survivors were found underneath the dead. When rescuers discovered living, they began piling the dead to one side, and carrying out anyone who still showed signs of life.
Tim Coleman:Clothes torn away, bruised, and bloodied, survivors began coming out of the building. Some who had the presence of mind were helping others, others and carrying children. Multiple accounts report that most of the survivors were strangely silent. Through the night, bodies were removed from the theater. Totaling just over 600, they were piled on wagons, horse drawn ambulances, or simply laid on top of other bodies in the street and covered by blankets and tarps.
Tim Coleman:We don't see pictures of bodies piled up in the streets. The media was different a hundred twenty years ago. Even as recently as sixty or seventy years ago, now we have more dignity and and respect for people, but to have just just this mass casualty incident where people are piled up, literally on the streets is just completely unheard of today, and I'm glad we've moved along from that.
Jeff Moss:You know, now they have, you know, incident management systems and mass casualty training and plans and fire, police, EMS all realize that that things that these things are could happen and try to be more prepared for them and I'm sure that that's changed immensely because of and since nineeleven.
Tyler J. Thomas:If you
Jeff Moss:have better training and the techniques and the tools and the equipment that they have today, couldn't even imagine back then, you know, course it's going to be much different.
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah, I was thinking about reading this, basically what happened with COVID a few years ago. And you had to think about in places like New Jersey and New York City, they had to actually convert refrigeration trucks into mobile morgues just to handle the excessive deaths. And then there were places in South America, Spain, for example, where they had to actually convert ice skating rinks and repurpose them as temporary morgues as well. So I think as long as you do what Tim said, just treat the bodies with dignity, you're doing right no matter how odd or bizarre it may seem or sound. You're just doing the best you can.
Tyler J. Thomas:I mean, I worked at a hospital for many years and what a lot of people don't realize is that on any given day, the beds are 80 to 90% full. You can't make money if you're operating half full. So you get as best as you can. And then obviously mass casualty events happen and you have to accommodate, you have to reroute, maybe multiple hospitals in the area will share the burden, share the workload. Nobody plans, nobody anticipates six hundred people, almost six hundred people dying in one day.
Tyler J. Thomas:And so there's no right way to handle it other than just doing the best you can to treat everybody with dignity.
Tim Coleman:Many of the deaths were caused directly by issues with paths of escape, doors, and lock hardware. After all of this death and destruction, good would eventually prevail. Fire code enforcement would now be strictly enforced. All theaters in Chicago were closed until they passed inspection. Other cities throughout the country followed suit and enforced existing ordinances and created new ones.
Tim Coleman:Since the majority of deaths were caused by smoke inhalation and trauma caused by being trampled to death due to not being able to safely exit the building, many of these new codes focused on paths of egress or ways
Jeff Moss:enforcement, but we tell people, we really shouldn't do this. We don't want to be responsible for it. We won't do it. The applications of, I want a panic bar. I want a deadbolt on this door with a panic bar where there's an exit sign because the kids keep getting out.
Jeff Moss:It's not a lock problem, that's a people. And we're not going to put our name on it. Want to go buy a deadbolt and install it yourself? I guess go for it. But I don't know that we would go as far as to report that to the authority having jurisdiction, but we certainly wouldn't put our name or our seal of approval on it.
Tim Coleman:It is part of the locksmith's responsibility to know these codes and what's being enforced and what's unique to each jurisdiction that you work in and being able to help our customers and explain that, but more importantly, not doing, like you said, dangerous things that could get somebody hurt.
Tyler J. Thomas:Code enforcement happens, to put it grossly, in about two stages. You've got permitting and then you've got your certificate of occupancy. And this varies city to city, county to county, state to state. But generally it's largely the same. Starting with permits, there are many different types of permits from general construction to electrical, to plumbing, to even fire sprinklers.
Tyler J. Thomas:But whatever the case may be, the purpose of any permits to number one, alert the governing body of planned work and number two, allow them to review proposed work so that they can confirm that the proposed work is going to comply with things like zoning laws, land use standards, construction ordinance, and most importantly here, life safety laws. So throughout the construction and renovation process, it's not uncommon for the governing body officials, what Jeff called the AHJ or the authority having jurisdiction, to basically show up to the job site to ensure that these things are happening as they should. On larger projects such as a theater the size of Iroquois, these site surveys happen frequently throughout the project. I knew somebody that was involved in the construction of Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta here a few years ago and he was on-site every day. When I say he, I mean the AHJ or a few code enforcement officials.
Tyler J. Thomas:Granted that was a billion dollar plus building with seating for 70,000, but they were going through inspections nonstop. Once the construction or renovation is completed, the next step for the purposes of this discussion is to obtain what they call the certificate of occupancy, which is sort of a final inspection of the premises to ensure that everything's up to code and all is well. If it is, occupant is granted the certificate of occupancy and they can start operating within their suite, building, whatever it may be. If it's not, the deficiencies must be corrected before it's issued. Going back here with Iroquois, had there been an official modern final inspection, likely wouldn't have gotten that certificate of occupancy, things would have turned out differently.
Tyler J. Thomas:Taking things a step further, some jurisdictions in The United States, like my home county of DeKalb here in Georgia, they require a new certificate of occupancy even if no construction or renovation has taken place. It's a pain in the ass and trust me, I go through it annually with my business, but it's a diligent and necessary approach to ensure that everything remains up to code. In other words, if Tim sold me the building, they want to make sure that Tim didn't do things like alter fire suppression systems or utilize door hardware such as double cylinder deadbolts where they shouldn't be. All that to say, in modern times, the process to ensure life safety in all buildings is more advanced than ever and the life safety deficiencies we've spent the last two episodes discussing would have likely been caught and the building owner, contractor, whoever's involved would have had to rectify them before the governing body, the AHJ, allowed them to proceed. But there certainly exists the possibilities of bribery and corruption which we talked about in part one.
Tyler J. Thomas:I will say however that bribery and corruption is highly illegal and a few times a year we hear about it. In May, for example, the US Attorney's Office sentenced six people for bribery and corruption associated with the issuing of building permits in Hawaii. In that case, the chief building inspector for the city and county of Honolulu was sentenced to five years in prison, two years supervised release and a $100,000 fine for issuing fraudulent building permits. So suffice to say shortcuts to life safety and destruction are not taken lightly when caught and for good reason.
Jeff Moss:Yeah, I have a friend who managed commercial office buildings and he was the maintenance superintendent. You know the city comes through every year and inspects every suite and there was one guy who thought I'm friends with the mayor and the fire inspector says that's you know that's nice tell him I said hi you have thirty days to fix this violation. Some cities are stricter than others. I've seen job sites shut down for stuff like that. I've heard a lot of stories.
Jeff Moss:If something gets messed up and somebody didn't pull a permit there can be some serious fines. You know say they were doing a remodel and they had a fire. If you didn't pull a permit for that space sure that there would be some sort of retroactive fees or something because, hey, you're doing this work and you caused a fire. Oh, and you didn't tell us you were doing this work to begin with.
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah, lot of those renovations when, for example, they're doing work to either the sprinkler system or the sprinkler systems offline, those permits, that notification has to go to the fire department because in the event of a fire, they need to know, you know, what they're up against. Oh, it's not sprinkler. Or, you know, maybe we're going to be treating this a little bit differently because it's construction. It's going be combustible materials more so than others, you know, pallets of furniture, wood, structure, whatever it may be. So yeah, I mean, it goes as far as protecting the life safety of it, at the same time, there's other people in that building occupying it.
Tyler J. Thomas:If a fire were to break out at one of these sites and the sprinkler system's not active or present, that's a good thing to know when you're fighting that fire. It also gives the fire department kind of a heads up to protect everything else in that building that is still occupied.
Tim Coleman:Today, the NFPA, or National Fire Protection Association has code 101 which acts as the life safety bible in use throughout this country. It clearly states that doors in the path of egress cannot be locked from the side of egress Exceptions to this rule exist, of course. For example, prisons or other specific institutional settings. However, none of these exceptions apply to venues such as theaters, arenas, schools, or shopping malls, to name a few. As we mentioned previously, the Iroquois Theatre had accordion style gates blocking audience members from leaving the gallery or balcony.
Tim Coleman:These gates were made out of heavy iron and probably weighed between ninety and one hundred and twenty pounds. There were also locking mechanisms to prevent people from simply pulling the gate out of the way. These were the means of keeping a person from paying for an inexpensive seat than moving to a better seat once the show has began. Now, in modern times, gates like this are blatantly illegal when they block groups of people into an area. While they can be used to keep the general public out of areas such as construction zones, workers in these zones must also have clear paths of egress in order to escape a disaster.
Tim Coleman:If a stadium or theater today needs to prevent access between levels, they usually have employees at the main access to those levels who verify a ticket holder's seats. If the seat assignment on the ticket matches, the person is permitted to proceed. If not, they are directed to their correct seating assignment. As tedious to deal with when going to a major league game, most Americans are well used to it by now. But in nineteen o three, the answer was to just admit people to their sections and then lock them in.
Jeff Moss:That's crazy to me that they would lock people in there. The direct opposite of what we see at any event. Whether they didn't know any better or they didn't care, it seems like those are based on all the other stuff from this story that doesn't surprise me because of all the different things that went wrong but certainly something that you would never even think of today.
Tim Coleman:I mean if I go into any type of building and I feel that I'm going to be trapped in there I automatically have an issue with it. Furthermore to that, I don't know if you guys do this, but if I go into a store like a convenience store, gas station, someplace, and they have double storefront doors and one of them has the flush bolts locked on it, that's blocking a path of egress. When I was working patrol, I used to unlock those flush bolts all the time. Even if I was just going in to get a a drink or a snack or something, I would unlock those flush bolts. If the staff said anything to me, I would tell them, you know, hey, it's illegal to have that.
Tim Coleman:They'd be like, oh.
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah. I'd be lying if I said that we, as locksmiths, still don't encounter customers wanting to have hardware installed that violates this very basic tenet of life safety, basically not locking people inside of an area. The good thing, like Jeff said earlier, and that we all agree on is that almost all locksmiths do not comply with these requests. We want nothing to do with it, and almost everybody universally refuses them. For particularly gray area requests, things that aren't readily apparent in the code, we usually get the AHJ, that authority having jurisdiction we talked about earlier, which is basically synonymous with the fire marshal, to at least approve what we're going to do.
Tyler J. Thomas:But that leads into a whole another point. Permission to do so isn't an endorsement, and it doesn't absolve you of liability. It's basically nothing more than the saying, I'm not gonna ding you or your customer for this, be it a solution to one door or many. I'm just gonna permit it, but that's it. So let me lay this out another way, especially for locksmiths listening, as I've said in the past, don't think that just because the AHJ or fire marshal or whoever allows it, it doesn't mean you're in the free or clear if something happens.
Tyler J. Thomas:They're just, like I said, not gonna penalize your customer for having it on their premises. So keep that in mind when you do something, you're not absolved of liability. You still want to be going about things as best as possible. So it's not a get out of jail free card is basically what I'm trying to say.
Jeff Moss:Now would they, would you get something in writing from the and from the customer?
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah, but I am not a lawyer, so I don't know if that would stand up because I guess we would be the professional in that. I'll give you an example. The only time I've ever had to get something in writing from an was Trident installations on a large warehouse facility South Of Atlanta, about 30 of them. Basically, the paddle length was two inches shorter than what code required. I got that approved in writing and all of that.
Tyler J. Thomas:I'm not losing sleep over that. I mean, inches on a 36 inches wide door, that's nothing. I don't think that's ever going to cause an issue. And certainly if there was ever some sort of life safety event because of it, I doubt any judge jury's gonna fault me for, you know, two inches out of 36. But, you know, other things, things that aren't that nuanced fellas, I I won't touch even if I can get it in writing because like I just said, that doesn't absolve me of liability.
Tyler J. Thomas:And if somebody were to get hurt, god forbid, die, I'm the one that has to answer for it, and I don't want to.
Tim Coleman:Rule of thumb is if it sounds like it's going to be a big old mess, just stay away from it. The second contributor to the loss of life at the Iroquois Theatre were the complicated bascule locks on ground level doors. While photographs and investigative reports showed that there was little damage from the fire itself on the orchestra percade level, many of the deaths on this level were caused by sheer human force. People piling on top of people, pushing and shoving, stomping on other people, just trying to get out, resulted in deaths and serious traumatic injuries for hundreds. Stop and think for a second about the front door of your home.
Tim Coleman:Most likely, it swings inward. Meaning, when you go to leave for work in the morning, you unlock the deadbolt and knob or lever, turn the knob or pull the lever down, and then pull the door towards you while you are standing inside. Then, you step outside, turn around, and pull the door shut. Most American homes are built with in swinging exterior doors, so you are probably used to these actions that you don't even think about. If your house was on fire, things become more complicated.
Tim Coleman:There is smoke and flames everywhere. You don't know if your family or pets are with you or not, but you know you can't turn around and go back in for them. Standing at the front door, you fumble to unlock the deadbolt and get out. Now take it even further and imagine struggling to unlock and open that door, but behind you are 20 NFL linebackers also panicked and trying to escape. Due to human nature, they run straight into you and then into each other, and with all of the combined weight against the door that has to be pulled open, no one can actually open that door.
Tim Coleman:So this is the scenario that I actually use with customers when they want to install double cylinder deadbolts on their house. They always say, Oh, I can find the key and put the key in there and turn it in case of a fire. And I say, no, you can't. You will be dropping that key. You will be panicked.
Tim Coleman:Adrenaline will be coursing through you. You are going to be in a rush. You are going to be terrified. And don't think for one second that you can manage the fine motor skills of inserting that key into that log and turning it in order to escape during the fire. And then they say, well, we'll just leave the key in it until we leave on vacation.
Tim Coleman:I said, then you defeat the whole purpose of your rationale behind having a double cylinder deadbolt. And as I mentioned in part one of this series, I said that interconnected locks on residential doors should be a pretty good idea. Even though they're a pain to work on and a pain to install, that is one motion egress from a residential setting. Maybe as locksmiths, we should be taking a step back and looking at those again, reconsidering putting those on houses. But there is just no way that anybody is going to be able to overcome their fear and panic when faced with their house being on fire.
Tim Coleman:Jeff, you were in a situation a few years ago where the shop you worked at was robbed. Now leading up to that, you probably thought, you know, okay, if a robbery happens, this is what I'll do. But did your pre thoughts, like your your thoughts beforehand, did they actually play out when that robbery happened?
Jeff Moss:And I never really thought about it. I didn't think anything like that would ever happen, to be honest.
Tim Coleman:Tyler, when you first started driving, knew eventually sometime that you might be in a car accident. When you were in a car accident for the first time, was it anything like how you thought it would be?
Tyler J. Thomas:No. Seemed like time seemed to stand still because I got t boned by somebody going about 60 miles an hour, and I was at a dead stop. Snapped both the axles on my Ford Explorer at the time, but no. It was completely different from what I thought it would be. It's like a split second of chaos and then quietness.
Tyler J. Thomas:It's just crazy.
Tim Coleman:So obviously when we are faced with certain situations that we think through in our minds of one way that they will happen, in reality, it comes out completely different. And that's the case with this door hardware in the Iroquois Theatre is people thought that maybe we could get out a certain way. People today think, oh, I will remain calm. I won't have these problems. It won't happen to me because I think about it ahead of time.
Tim Coleman:And that's simply not the case.
Tyler J. Thomas:And I'm guilty of this too. You know, we sell and service the same hardware day in, out, where we think it's abundantly clear about how things work and how it should operate. How often do we have to replicate or repeat the steps as abundantly clear as they are to us? How often do we have to go back and train the customer again? So I think that perhaps the architects, the designers of this theater thought, Oh, we sell these all the time, or, Hey, look, we just installed one.
Tyler J. Thomas:Look how easy this is. They can figure it out. You just spent sixty minutes, two hours, whatever installing it, and then you did it ten, twenty times. Yeah, it's gonna be clear to you. But John Doe out on the street, he's never done this before.
Tyler J. Thomas:So why would he know?
Tim Coleman:It's sort of like when you have a house guest and you have to explain to them how you lift up on the door and push in in order to get it to lock or unlock. You know, little nuances like that about your house, your doors, you know, you shouldn't have to explain that to anyone, especially if you're a door hardware professional like we are.
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah, hate to keep beating a dead horse, but basically you've got to design egress routes and door hardware in simple, stupid means these days. And thankfully, that's where we're at right now in terms of building and life safety codes. Will loss of life due to a fire in a commercial setting be prevented? No. No, it never will be.
Tyler J. Thomas:But we have to keep in mind that these sorts of fires were frequently happening in the early twentieth century. I mean, that's gonna be the next four episodes after this one. In our lifetime, can any of you remember a mass casualty event from a soul fire? I mean, I'm sure you can make a argument that nine eleven falls into that, and I would disagree because obviously that, you know, more than just a fire, but the last memorable example of a mass fire casualty event in our lifetime or within reasonable proximity to our lifetime was the MGM Grand Fire in 1980. Have either of you heard of that?
Jeff Moss:Briefly, I mean, that's seven years before was born.
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah, well, I mean, there you go, eighty seven deaths, forty three years ago this November. So what used to be relatively commonplace is now sort of a total aberration. And that's a testament to life safety and building codes.
Tim Coleman:But it's not in residential settings. And I know we're we're talking more about commercial and everything, but the majority of locksmiths out there who are on the road do residential and commercial, and I will talk about it in our next series in a little more in-depth, but I remember as a nine one one dispatcher, one of the last really bad fires that I dispatched and handled had four fatalities in it, and it was in a residence. And those four people died because they could not get out. So that's something that you should keep in mind, not just with commercial, but also residential.
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah. And I I think that goes back to codes adopted and enforced by state. In Georgia, for example, there's really nothing as far as residential. You can do whatever you want. When you've got multi family residential applications, that's where the rules start to change for good reason.
Tyler J. Thomas:But in my house, my neighbor's house, whatever, we can pretty much do whatever. We can put double cylinder deadbolts. We can put 20 of them on the same door if we wanted to. There's nothing against the law to do that. Hopefully, a locksmith in Georgia would not be doing that, but, you know, hyperbole, I'm just giving an example that anything pretty much goes here, and I'm sure it does around most of America.
Tim Coleman:Just because you can doesn't mean that you should. Even when one of the heroes of this disaster, Frank Houseman, a former Major League Baseball player for the Chicago Colts, whom we mentioned in the last episode, approached a door that had a bascule lock installed, it still took him a moment or two in order to complete the unlocking sequence. Keep in mind that the escutcheons and trim on these locks were so ornate and intricate that operation would not be immediately apparent to someone who has not used them before. To look at modern requirements, NFPA 101 states that the releasing mechanism on a door must not require more than one releasing operation. There are of course exceptions, however none would cover the bascule locks on the Iroquois Theatre.
Tim Coleman:NFPA 101 also states that a door lock must be able to be unlocked and unlatched from the egress side without the use of a key, tool, or special knowledge or effort. In this case, special knowledge was obviously required as it was not as simple as pressing the bar on an exit device or pulling a lever. Locksmiths and door hardware installers today are required to follow not only the codes of National Fire Protection Association, but all state and local codes as well. Locksmiths working across multiple authorities having jurisdiction should be familiar with all of their requirements. For instance, one city's code might simply state that hardware which easily releases the locking and latching mechanisms on a door is installed.
Tim Coleman:But in the neighboring jurisdiction, it might specify that storefront door locking and latching mechanisms have a releasing lever, or a releasing paddle operator installed. And a third jurisdiction might specify that on storefront doors, one motion releasing exit device that spans no less than two thirds of the width of the door be installed. The Iroquois fire and the lives lost within are one of the reasons why locksmiths today must adhere to certain code requirements when installing hardware on doors. Generally, the rule of thumb is that everyone inside of a building has to be able to get out without having any special knowledge of how to operate door hardware, and without using keys, fobs, or special tools to do so. I think when we come in contact with a customer who wants us to do certain work, this is where our job really steps up to the point of educating the customer.
Tim Coleman:I mean, we've talked about this before, but educating your customer and letting them know why you can't do stuff that they want you to do, why you can't install certain hardware that they might want, is really important. And the customer might get a little mad at you, but it's important to hold your ground and really be able to base your your argument, on knowledge of local codes and state codes and national codes so that you don't paint yourself into a corner. Because after all, wouldn't you hate to be the guys who install this hardware at the Iroquois Theatre?
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah, that's not something I'd want on my conscience.
Jeff Moss:No, it's pretty bad.
Tyler J. Thomas:When I transitioned from an apprentice to sometimes decision maker, I really got into life safety codes and not for nothing. If you're looking for a cure for insomnia, just buy a copy of NFPA 101 and start reading. It's an incredibly dry read but with incredibly substantive material. But it has to read that way. I mean, life safety and building codes are legal documents.
Tyler J. Thomas:As soon as they're adopted by states, for example, they become legal documents. So they're not supposed to be anything other than just the facts. And one of the most endearing things in our community, whenever a locksmith encounters one of these gray areas, obviously not the case here in Iroquois, but like Tim was just saying, we've got a situation approached by three different jurisdictions three different ways. It's endearing that locksmiths are reaching out and asking for guidance because they almost always do. So I can't speak for electricians or access control integrators or the rest, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they do the same thing.
Tyler J. Thomas:But in my experience, locksmiths are always trying to approach these situations they've never encountered with the best possible intentions and solutions by reaching out and asking for guidance. Hey, what would you do in this situation? Or what are my options? Think all three of us have done it. We'll continue to do it.
Tyler J. Thomas:But I mean, that's why life safety and building codes are continuously revised. Lessons are learned and we adjust accordingly.
Jeff Moss:Yeah. So I think it's very important if you're not sure about something, ask somebody whether it's the AHJ itself, coworkers, your boss, other locksmiths. I mean you'll get different answers from different parts of the country which may not always apply. You know, I'm guessing people don't want to call up the building inspector to tattle on themselves or their customer but that is the best source. Know I called, hey do I need a permit for doing XYZ?
Jeff Moss:They said no you don't. Didn't say where, didn't say who I was, you know talking about doing a wiring job or something like you know you don't have to give them all that information but there's no shame in asking how something is done so you don't screw it up. Whether it's a door, you know, it's a lock for a car that I've never seen before and I had my coworker help me on last week to, you know, can I put this hardware in legally? You know, it runs the gamut and much rather be chided for asking for help than be sued because I didn't.
Tim Coleman:And I think that kind of goes back to what I was saying a second ago about customer education is even if the customer gets kind of mad at you, you know that you've done the right thing. And you know that you've taken that monkey completely off of your shoulders by either refusing to do work or explaining to them and the customer basically saying, We don't want you to do this. I would sleep much better at night knowing that, yeah, I might have lost a thousand dollars, $2,000 in work, but I did the right thing.
Tyler J. Thomas:And kind of a silver lining for this series in the next four that we're gonna be discussing is that if ever pressed about those issues, you've got a real world historical example to point back to and say, hey, look, they did it this way here and look what happened. Now I know you're not in a theater with a thousand people or whatnot. One death is just as bad as 600 in my when preventable.
Tim Coleman:Hopefully, door hardware technicians and locksmiths who are listening to this podcast will take information away from these episodes and be able to use that every day. They might not have to go quite in-depth as we do in researching and preparation for these episodes, but at least we can give them a starting point for knowledge to use.
Tyler J. Thomas:Yeah, not just them, but the people that are specifying the hardware. I mean, all of a sudden, out of nowhere in Atlanta the past three or four years and apparently across The United States, we're seeing a lot of these ladder pools in commercial settings, Class A real estate. Those are not very conducive to life safety in my opinion, even though they use thumbturns and ADA thumb turns, which are maybe two or three inches. I'd hate to think what would happen if a life safety event happened and you had to get out and one of those were locked. That's not gonna be good.
Tim Coleman:In the aftermath of the fire, Chicago mayor, Carter Harrison Jr. Recommended that the city council form a committee to investigate the fire. Through these actions, he ordered every theater in the city to immediately discontinue use of arc lamps. William Davis, the manager of the Iroquois Theatre was charged and convicted of misfeasance. These charges were later dropped however.
Tim Coleman:Mayor Harrison was also criminally charged with several crimes, they were later dropped as well. Eddie Foy, the actor portraying Sister Ann, a role that showcased his physical comedy skills, was praised after the fire by survivors for keeping the crowd calm and remaining on stage stage even while burning debris fell around him. After he escaped the inferno through a cold delivery hatch, he continued performing vaudeville acts including one, The Seven Little Foys, that continued until his death in 1927 at age 71. John Franklin Houseman, the former Chicago Colts player, who along with fellow player Charlie Daxter lived until 11/04/1922.
Tim Coleman:City gets Iroquois Hospital. Institution in memory of theater victims is dedicated. Speakers recall tragedy, exercises held an exact hour of disaster seven years later.
Tim Coleman:Chicago Tribune, 12/31/1910. The Iroquois Memorial Emergency Hospital, located at 87 Market Street, was dedicated seven years after the disaster. At the ceremonies, Doctor. W. A.
Tim Coleman:Evans, Commissioner of Health, said: We meet here today at the time of day when, just seven years ago, those whose tragic end we commemorate were on their way to death. It is well that they should not have died in vain, but that some good should come out of their sacrifice and suffering. Such calamities should make us greater in charity, philanthropy and blessing. They should make us realize that we are all one family. A bronze memorial tablet was placed in the hospital's waiting room, designed by Loretto Taft, a renowned Chicago sculptor.
Tim Coleman:Mr. Taft's elected sympathy personified as a woman, as the central figure of the tablet, to introduce a procession of humanity, some of them takers, some of them givers, but all deeply impressed by the significance of the dominating figure of sympathy. Although the Iroquois Hospital was torn down in 1951, the plaque was saved and placed in storage for several decades. It is now mounted on a wall above Chicago's City Hall's Lassalle entrance. The only other memorial erected for the Iroquois Theatre victims is a diamond shaped granite stone located in Chicago's Montrose Cemetery, placed in 1908, still stands in the cemetery at 5400 North Pulaski Road.
Tim Coleman:As for the Iroquois Theatre itself, with the exterior wall intact, the theatre reopened nine months later as Hyde and Beamens Music Hall. Later it was renamed the Colonial Theatre. In 1925, the building was demolished. Occupying the land was now the United Masonic Temple which contained the Oriental Theatre. Later called the Ford Centre for the Arts, it stands today as the Nederlander Theatre, having been renamed in 2019.
Tim Coleman:It operates today with Hamilton as the main production as of this recording. In the days after the fire, a young man who had been in Chicago for a business trip was deeply moved after learning his narrow escape from almost certain death. After returning to his home in Indiana, he worked with his neighbor and his boss to develop a product that would change life safety codes, door hardware, and locksmithing forever.
Jeff Moss:Executive producer is Tyler j Thomas. Technical producer is Jeff Bumps. This episode researched and produced by Tyler j Thomas and Tim Coleman. Writer and editor is Tim. This has been a Three Tumblers production.
Jeff Moss:Season two, copyright 2023. All rights reserved. And this episode and others wherever you get your podcasts.