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There were five initial stages in America's worst theater disaster:
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A spark from an arc lamp set fire to the frayed edge of a fabric curtain.
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The fire quickly engulfed
thousands of yards of hanging
fabric scenery and turned the
unventilated stage into a kiln
filled with super-heated gas.
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A door
opened to the outside produced a backdraft that injected cold air into the kiln,
causing a combustion of new flames to burst into the nearest cavern of oxygen — the
auditorium.
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A fan in a ventilation shaft at the back corner of the building added momentum, pulling
the mass of flames up into the balconies where four-hundred audience members were trapped.
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Within seconds they heaved a collective last breath that was later described
as a sigh by survivors
who made it to fire escapes before the fireball took its toll.
It was December 30, 1903 at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago.
At preliminary inquests, city officials and attorneys were eager to
learn more about the ventilation shaft and fans. At the top of the
witness list was the head engineer and his assistant,
William Bain.
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As assistant engineer to
Robert Murray at the Iroquois, William Bain (1859–1944), probably
tended to the furnace, boilers and venting necessary
to maintaining the temperature at the theater.
At the coroner's inquest January 18, 1904 he testified that
he did not have an engineering license, a
requirement for stationary engineers in Chicago, but
maybe not for assistants. Nonetheless, fan
operation made his testimony important to
understanding America's worst theater disaster.
William was called to testify again at the
grand jury trial February 27, 1904.
In 1900 the Bains rented their home at 6347 Vincennes in
Chicago but ten years later had a mortgage and by
1920 the family's apartment house on Harper was paid off.
Home mortgages become more common in those years but were still
beyond the reach of many blue collar workers.
To own his home free and clear by his early sixties
was an accomplishment.
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Born in Scotland, William had immigrated to America in 1888,
married widow Rosa West in 1893, and their daughter
Jennie Bain (1896–1966) came along three years later. Rosa's
first husband, William Burnell, with whom she had
three children, had died in 1890 in an
electrocution accident at the lumber company where
he worked. For a while after beginning
this project I suspected people involved in
the Iroquois Theater fire were somehow
cursed; the number of accidental deaths
seemed crazy high. I came to realize
accidents were a product of the times.
Poor safety standards and primitive
technology increased the incidence and
consequences of fires, floods,
electrocutions, poisoning, machine failures,
etc. It was a dangerous time to be
alive.
In the years after the fire
Rosa passed in 1918 but daughter Jennie and a
stepson from Rosa's first marriage lived with
William in the 1930s and at his death.
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