William Curran (1840-1912)electrical inspector

Sixty-three-year-old William Curran, a native of Canada, resigned from the building department in February, 1906, two years after the Iroquois Theater fire.  In his inspection of the theater minutes before the show started, he gave the facility an A-OK.  Curran was one of fifteen building inspectors.  Annual salary: $1,200 ($31,000 today).  He testified before the coroner's jury in mid-January 1904 that he squeezed in unofficial theater inspections at night and on weekends.  Though Curran testified that he understood his job description required him to spot check if aisles were too full of standing patrons in theaters, Iroquois usher superintendent George Dusenberry testified that during Curran's December 30, 1903 visit, minutes before the fire broke out, he did not remark upon the filled aisles to Dusenberry.  Curran also testified that he was not responsible for the condition of exits and that a replacement was not hired for the position of chief inspector, previously occupied by his supervisor, after the May 1903 death of William H. Barry.  William and Catherine Monahan Curran had four children.  He was the son of William and Annie Cleary Curran.

Harry H. Hornsby (1871-1943) electrical inspector

Chicago city electrician Harry Hay Hornsby, a thirty-two-year-old St. Louis native, was filling in for Chicago City Electrician, Edward B. Ellicott (who was on temporary assignment as chief electrical engineer for the St. Louis at World's Fair).  Hornsby testified at the coroner's inquest that the Chicago Edison Company had applied for a permit to install 2,400 incandescent lamps* at the Iroquois Theater and inspections were made throughout the installation. In keeping with past practice, a "verbal permit" temporarily allowed electrical connection during construction.  At that stage, an inspection had been made of extension boxes, but not of lamps plugged into them. Hornsby reported that his department usually issued a permit subsequent to the inspection of fixture and placement of spot and flood lamps, but that there was no record of a permit application or inspection of the 625 incandescent lamps and twenty-five flood lamps used by the Mr. Bluebeard company at the Iroquois.  Harry Hornsby predicted that his assistant, Victor Tousley (see below), would testify that he was assured by Bluebeard managers that those lamps would not be used at the Iroquois.  If Tousley's testimony matched Hornsby's prediction, it was not reported in newspapers.  Tousley testified that it was not his job to scout the stage in search of new or changed lamps, that it was the theater's job to apply for an installation permit.  In general the coroners office initially seemed more interested in pinning blame for the fire on one of Chicago's municipal departments than on Iroquois owners or Bluebeard producers.  The States Attorneys office would have a different vision.

Three years after the Iroquois Theater fire, Harry married Pauline Kimbell (1886-).  In 1920 he operated his own electrical shop, by 1930 worked as a salesman for someone else's electrical shop and, in the last decade of his life, Harry and Pauline ran a boarding house.

Enlarge

Victor H. Tousley (1876-1972) assistant electrical inspector

Electrical inspector, Victor Tousley Jr. (1876-1972), was assistant to Harry H. Hornsby.  At trial the deputy coroner, Lawrence Buckley, made much of Klaw & Erlanger not having gotten permission from  the electrical department, via an application submitted to Hornsby and inspection passed by Tousley before the Mr. Bluebeard company plugged in light fixtures that traveled with the company, such as the combination flood/spotlight that started the fire.

Deputy coroner Buckley disregarded testimony about fifty lamps plugged into extensions and implied that Mr. Bluebeard stage workers altered structural wiring, leaving me to wonder if Buckley knew the difference.  Down, Larry.  No smoking gun, just a plug.  I found no other newspaper reports about illegal wiring so perhaps someone schooled Buckley on extensions.

Tousley was the son of Wisconsin parents, Wilber and Genoa Tousley.  His father, Wilber, a former publisher, died just twenty days before the Iroquois Theater fire.  Victor's younger brother, John, was also an electrician.  In 1921 Victor may have taken advantage of his father's contacts when he co-published a book about electricity.   Sears Roebuck  marketed it.  In the accompanying photo, taken during Victor's Iroquois trial testimony, he looks to be about fifteen years old but he was actually twenty-seven.  By 1921 he was head of the electrical subsection of the Chicago building department.  Victor married Nila Commellson.  They had one child, Gilbert Tousley.

Chicago Building Commissioner George D. Williams

Three Chicago electrical inspectors

Theater syndicate had big plans for Chicago corner