Joseph Bruce was one of early escapees from the third floor balcony at the Iroquois Theater

In 1874 Joseph and his family survived a locust fire and helped his family found Creighton, Nebraska...

Bernard B. Boecker, Naperville, Illinois businessman, survived Iroquois Theater fire in 1903.

Boecker remained in the theater until the last possible minute...

The John R. Thompson restaurant on Randolph Street in Chicago became a temporary hospital during the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire.

Like hundreds of other fathers, John Thompson was frantic to learn if his two children were safe...

Ruth Smith was orphaned eighteen months before losing her life at the Iroquois Theater.

She was buried in Benzonia, Michigan with her grandparents and parents...

Carrie Leavenworth went to the theater by herself, to see the play recommended by her teenage son back home.

Carrie came from Decatur into Chicago to spend some time with her mother-in-law...

Mary Lutiger survived the Iroquois Theater fire but lost her career, senses and her mother.

Eleanora Lutiger spent over sixty years overcoming obstacles and protecting her children but was defeated by the Iroquois fire...

Abba Breed Morris was the mother of five children and the wife of a Chicago police officer.

Abba, nicknamed Libby, and her youngest child, Mabel, were among nearly six hundred victims of America's worst theater fire...

Charles Dalby James was the third generation in this Detroit family to enter the hardware business.

In January, 1904, Charles and Sarah James buried their sixth child.  Their son was a victim of the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago on December 30, 1903...

Helen was the daughter of one of Chicago's wealthiest men. Alice was the widow of a New Orleans cotton scion.

Old Hutch was first to corner the grain market in Chicago. Alice survived the Great Chicago fire and the Iroquois Theater fire.

Winthrop Spring brought his wife and daughter from their small town home in Iowa to Chicago.

Marjorie lost her mother at the Iroquois Theater fire, her husband in WWII when he became a Japanese POW then died in the sinking of the Arisan Maru, and her own life from spinal injuries incurred in an auto accident in Grants Pass, Oregon..

William Rattey had seconds in which to make a decision with no good options.

Four-year-old LeRoy Reinhold survived for five days but his uncle Willie passed on before him... 

Emma Mann was a music teacher for Chicago public schools, known by hundreds of students.  Her niece Olive Squire was a student at the Blaine school.

Wilhemina Squire lost her third child and sister...

Nellie Padgitt had just celebrated her first wedding anniversary and was looking forward to the birth of her first child.

Frank Folice lost his wife and unborn child.  He spent the last seventeen years of his life in an asylum...

Presence of Ghouls at Iroquois disaster exaggerated

Contrary to newspaper hyperbole, just five stories were at heart of body robbing claims...

Domestic servant, Gertrude Fitzpatrick

Gertrude Fitzpatrick worked as a housekeeper for insurance broker, George Elias Shipman and helped care...

Uncertainties about fire alarms

There are discrepancies in reports about alarms connected with the Iroquois Theater fire...

Mr. Bluebeard chorus girl Ethel Lytle

Dancer Lytle survived the Iroquois Theater fire but her mother was a tougher challenge...

Winnetka thirteen-year-old-Linda Bolte

Granddaughter of an industrialist and daughter of an early feminist, Linda would have led an interesting life...

Pharmacist Humma saves future wife and stepdaughter

Osmond saved Martha and Anita Lawrence from the Iroquois Theater fire...

Everyone thought he was dead - until he returned from his honeymoon

Erie and Western Transportation Company railroad man Will Ahern did not die at the Iroquois...

Iroquois Theater defense and prosecution attorneys

There were three trials, seven prosecuting attorneys and thirteen defense attorneys... 

More is known about her son than about seventy-eight year old Minnie Christopherson

He was co-owner in the Larson picture frame manufacturing company...

Animosa and Cedar Rapids, Iowa girls Bessie and Nina Chapman set out for a carefree theater excursion

Bessie was a college student and Nina was a stenographer ..

Retired baseball player Frank Houseman owned a successful bar

Despite injured hands, Raphael became a commercial artist.  His eleven year old sister Jennie was lost...

A con artist dressed as a nun claimed to have helped Couch Place survivors

Rachael Gorman used charity, epileptic patients and religious faith as tools to bilk the wealthy...

Iroquois Theater ushers were unfairly characterized in newspapers.

Ushers at the Iroquois Theater behaved with human predictability, some with courage, some with cowardice...

Charlie Bibel, a trombone player from Bloomington, IL survived the theater fire, and his dysfunctional family but died in an insane asylum after being beaten by a street car conductor.

After escaping from the Confederate army and defying a president, Louis Schwitalsky Bibel had to fend off his wife and son's murder attempt in the town square...

Excepting a few weasels, the 1903-1905 Chicago city council made a diligent albeit belated effort to atone for having treated public safety like a casino bet.

The stakes were higher than the aldermen imagined when they procrastinated in reconstructing the city's theater ordinance...

The men and women who worked behindscenes at the Iroquois Theater.

The scene shifters and lamp operators, talent coaches and riggers...

Fourteen from ten families in LaPorte County, Indiana were impacted by the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire.

Wile, Norris, Holmes Barker, Bray, Beahm, Loomis, Dickhut, Wachs and Lefmann.  All but one survived...

Father and son Fred and Edward Bahr from Manitowoc, Wisconsin survived America's worst theater disaster.

Did Manitowoc newspapers ever cover the Bahr's story...

Eva Wilcox's husband was a photographer, a druggist, an oculist, a dentist, a pornographer and a con.

Fifteen years before the Iroquois Theater fire their lives were turned upside down by an ambitious newspaper reporter...

Frank McMillan invented the first practical motion picture projector with Alvah Roebuck

In 1903 Frank lost his young wife and found himself with two babies to raise... 

Helen and James Long of Geneva, Illinois lost all three of their children at the Iroquois Theater fire.

Who went with the Long children to the theater that fateful day?

For the Martin and Pridmore families the Iroquois Theater fire was just the start of their sorrows.

  Imagine losing five of your children, one at a time, over a twelve year period.  That was the what the fates gave Emma Martin...

Louis Guenzel's report described configuration and condition of the the theater's many doors.

  Iroquois Theater doors did not open inward but had other issues preventing proper operation... 

Charles Page saved Chicago baseball leagues but couldn't save his wife and child from Iroquois Theater fire.

  Two mothers and their teenage children lost their lives...

Jacob and Milton Falk lost their parents,
then their sister Gertie.

Twenty-one-year-old Gertie was buried at Jewish Graceland , one of Chicago's oldest cemeteries...

The prosperity of one of Chicago's wealthiest families could not save the Gartz daughters.

Two Gartz daughters perished, along with their governess and her daughter...

Theater party of four perished

As a special treat, Mary Foltz took her two daughters and their friend to an afternoon theater matinee...

The Boice family trio died at the Iroquois

William Boice had just returned to the business of canes and umbrellas... 

Charles Hewitt's family survived the fire

Irene Beath from Louisville found more excitement than she expected when she visited her sister in Chicago in 1903...   

Chicago building department in court after the fire

Trial testimony revealed systemic problems...

Cella had lost her father a year earlier but it was ime to stop mourning

Consilia Byrne and her aunt Mary Byrne just wanted to celebrate a new year.

Thirteen-year-old John Clayton went to the theater by himself

Described as artistic, Vinton may have been as attracted by the scenery and decor... 

Dr. McInnes of Belvidere, Illinois survived todescribe the ordeal

Three-term mayor established city's first paid fire department..

Watchworks melted at 3:50 PM

Watches established time  fireball hurled ito the auditorium...

Birdie Dryden just wanted to give the school boys a nice ending to their Christmas break

Robert Caldwell was visiting from St. Louis and went to the theater with his hosts, the Dryden family...

Niles, Michigan schoolgirl and Chicago surgeon escaped Iroquois Theater fire but not the dangers that came in later years.

Highschool girl Plowden Stevens was the adopted daughter of Viola Dresden and lived in the Castle Rest mansion.  Her boyfriend was a surgeon...