Keyword search
(Iroquois-specific results
will appear at bottom of
search list):
Note: If this tab has been open in your browser for hours
or days, a new search may bring an access error or unproductive results. When that happens, position the cursor in the
"Enhanced by Google" search box above, then refresh your screen
(F5 on PC, Cmd-R on Apple, 3-button symbol at top right of screen on Android or iphone) and
re-enter your search words.
RULING UPHELD DECEMBER 29, 1904
In a $15,000 legal claim against the city of Chicago brought by Iroquois victim
Eva Catherine Clapp Gibson for a spinal injury and broken arm, Superior Court Judge
Jesse Holdom ruled that Chicago was not
liable for the failure of city inspectors to
prevent the Iroquois Theater from opening.
It was good news for the city. Some said
sixty-odd pending suits estimated at eight
million dollars in damage would have bankrupted Chicago.
Holdom's decision was upheld
on December 30, 1904 with a fatal victim,
Robert S. Thompson as the class
representative plaintiff
of nine Iroquois cases, one year after the
disaster, by circuit court judge
Charles M.
Walker.
Eva Gibson had attended the theater with her
friend,
Emma Schweitzer.▼1
It was sometimes reported that they sat in the fifth row of the parquet and
sometimes in the orchestra circle. This probably means they sat in the
parquet on the first floor thus were well out of the auditorium before the
backdraft that killed hundreds in the balconies.
Nonetheless,
Emma described running in terror fifteen
feet ahead of a hissing fireball, knowing her friend had fallen but running to
save her own life. Eva crawled out on her hands and
knees, burned and with limbs broken from
being trampled upon by others fleeing the
auditorium. Emma failed to persuade men in
the lobby to go back after Eva so ran to
Eva's husband's office to get help. Eva survived.
Forty-one-year-old
Emma C. Dreesbach Schweitzer
(1862–1908) was not injured. She testified that she
had paid particular attention to the
painted
act curtain because she was a fine artist who worked in oil
paints and was interested in the colors. Emma was
the wife of a wholesale clothing merchant, Abe
Schweitzer, married c.1890. Schweitzer and Gibson insisted that no attempts were
made to lower the fire curtain, contradicting dozens of other witnesses. The
womens' confusion came from not knowing that the fire curtain was painted and looked
like an ornamental intermission curtain, and had been used for that purpose earlier in
the performance.
Eva Katherine Clapp Mink
Gibson (1854/57–1916)
was an author who lived at the North Shore Hotel
with her husband. She was the daughter of Henry and
Ann Ely Clapp and wife of a professor of inorganic
chemistry, Dr. Charles B. Gibson (1854–1947).▼2 It was a second
marriage for both Eva and Charles. Her first marriage, to Tilghman H. Mink, had ended in
divorce and a lawsuit over alimony.
Most of Eva's books were published from 1884 to
1902. Some of her titles Included:
Romance novels (Her Bright Future, A Lucky Mishap, Mismated, A Dark Secret and A Woman's Triumph)
The son of William Eliza
Merritt Holdom, Judge Jesse Holdom (1851–1930),
emigrated to America from London in 1868 at age seventeen and
was admitted to the bar five years later. Governor
Joseph W. Fifer appointed him to the superior court
in 1898. Like Iroquois Theater manager Will
J. Davis and his defense attorneys, Levy
Mayer and Alfred
Austrian, Holdom was a collector of rare books.
Holdom was appointed to the superior court in 1898 by
Illinois governor Joseph W. Fifer. Like Iroquois
Theater manager
Will J. Davis and his defense attorney s
Levy Mayer and
Alfred Austrian ,
Holdom was a collector of rare books.
Judge Charles M. Walker (1860–1920) joined the circuit court in June 1903
after serving two terms as an alderman for the
twenty-fourth ward and as mayor Carter Harrison's
corporation counsel from 1894 to 1903. In 1908
Walker was elected chief justice of the circuit
court and served for the remainder of his life.▼3 At
his retirement, the chief justice position was
assumed by Robert
E. Crowe, prosecutor Albert Barne's co-counsel during Iroquois
Theater proceedings.
Discrepancies and addendum
1. Newspapers reported Emma's last name as Schweitzler, but she used Schweitzer in the city
directories.
1. Accustomed to the myriad connections between fifty
thousand residents in a small town, I am surprised
when similar relatedness appears among the two
million residents of 1903 Chicago. In 1897 Dr.
Charles Gibson was called to testify in a notorious
1897 trial involving a sausage manufacturer named Luetgert accused of killing his wife and disposing
of her remains in a cooking vat. Gibson was called
upon to give an opinion as to whether the slimy
residue removed from the vat was human flesh or that
of another animal. A witness at that trial was Henry
Norris,
one of many Chicago policemen who participated in
the Luetgert investigation and whose testimony was
important enough that the prosecutor brought them
back to work for the department after a dismissal.
Six years later, Henry's wife and daughter would die
at the Iroquois Theater.
3. As a boy, the family cook in the Walker household
was Nancy Green who would go on to become one of
three models used in Aunt Jemima pancake
advertising. In addition to his judicial activities,
Walker was a proponent for promoting Chicago's Lake
Michigan beaches.
Judge John Caverly in
1903
Overview Iroquois Theater
fire legal proceedings
Coroners jury for
Iroquois Theater disaster
Other discussions you might find interesting
irqcourt
Story 1086
A note about sourcing. When this
project began, I failed to anticipate the day might come when a
more scholarly approach would be called for. When my
mistake was recognized I faced a decision: go back and spend years creating source lists for every page, or go
forward and try to cover more of the people and circumstances
involved in the disaster. Were I twenty years younger, I'd
have gone back, but in recognition that this project will end when I do, I chose to go forward.
These pages will provide enough information, it is hoped, to
provide subsequent researchers with additional information.
I would like to
hear from you if you have additional info about an Iroquois victim, or find an error,
and you're invited to visit the
comments page to share stories and observations about the Iroquois Theater fire.
