Listening was an essential part of stationary engineer Robert E. Murry's job at the Iroquois Theater.  His ears told him almost as much as his eyes about how a motor was running or a boiler was firing.* 

On December 30, 1903, he had been in the basement tending to a sewer pump and was on his way back to the stage floor when he heard thumps and unusual sounds.  He instantly knew they weren't the usual sounds of a theater.  He ran to the stage.

He would have noticed the fire immediately because it created the brightest light in the building.  The auditorium and stage were in darkness for the Pale-Moonlight dance performance.  His eyes would have been drawn first to a display of moving lights and shadows on the stage floor then up to flames in the loft above, leaping from one hanging drape to the next.  He would have heard the crackling of the fire, greedily consuming hundreds of scenery curtains.  Then he saw fireman Saller's futile efforts with Kilfyre tubes.  Sallers straddled the rail of the south flybridge, about twelve feet up the proscenium wall, on which stood the arc lamp that started the fire.  Sallers was making hurling and striking motions with one arm while holding on to the rail with the other to keep from falling.  Sallers tried desperately to force the powder in the Kilfyre can to reach further into the flames, but it was an impossible task.  The fire was well above his head and quickly spreading across the stage from one hanging drape to the next.

All around the stage men shouted for someone to lower the fire curtain.  Robert looked to the other side of the stage and in the glare of the flames could see John Dougherty in the loft, frantically hauling in a rope.  Robert may have remembered that the regular flyman in that station, Slim Seymour, had been taken home sick and Dougherty was substituting.   The curtain started to drop but hung up on the north side.

Like William McMullen, Robert's youth and strength gave him courage and stamina.  Both men were everywhere during the fire.  Robert ran to help try to pull down the fire curtain.  When it became apparent it was a hopeless task, he ran back down to the basement and helped performers and costume workers escape through the smoking room that led to the front lobby and exit doors.†  When the smoke grew too heavy in the smoking room, he led them to coal chutes and pushed them up and out through manhole covers.

Murry was headed back toward the engine room, determined to shut off the boilers, when he found aerialist Nellie Reed.  The young woman was severely burned, screaming and clawing at a wall, presumably blinded, unable to find her way out — one of the most haunting scenes at the disaster.  He led her upstairs and handed her off to another stage worker who took her outside.  He ran back to the engine room and turned off the boilers.   By then, the smoke was thick enough that he didn't dare go back up to the stage.  He grabbed his toolbox and climbed up through the coal chute to safety.

Murry had worked for Davis at the Illinois Theater and throughout the final months of construction at the Iroquois.  He was more familiar than anyone else with the placement, condition and operation of fire stands, hoses and vents at the Iroquois.  His testimony before the coroner's jury on January 9 1904 provided the best overall picture of what equipment was and was not present at the Iroquois Theater.

Discrepancies and addendum

NOTE: Something may be amiss in the story of Murry pushing performers through manhole covers.  A newspaper story the day after the fire credited stagehand James Hamilton, with leading people out through the coal chute. The story is almost identical to Murray's, with Hamilton's name substituted.
 

Other Murry questions:

Why was he so determined to close the boilers?  Were they in danger of exploding?

What stairs did Murry use to lead Nellie Reed up to ground level? The stairs next to the light control panel or the spiral stair on the north side of the stage?  See floorplan at right.  Why didn't he use those same stairs to direct other cast members to safety, instead of taking them through the further east stairs off the smoking room and into the lobby?  Because the lobby was too packed with people?

Discrepancies and addendum

* The heating plant and other systems in an early 1900s theater were far from rudimentary.  Engineers and architects might appreciate this 1901 description of  systems at the Colonial Theater in Boston.

At the Iroquois, Murry was responsible for three coal-fired 90hp steam boilers thirty or so feet below the level of the sidewalk.  The L. H. Prentice Company advertised in the hardbound Iroquois Theater book distributed on Opening Night and may have been the subcontractor.  Prentice specialized in heating and ventilating systems in commercial structures.  They were based out of Waukegan, WI but had offices in Chicago.

† Dressing rooms for headliners were on multiple floors at the south side of the stage, accessed by an elevator.  Dressing rooms for supernumeraries were in the basement, along with the costume department, engine room and coal room.  Also in the basement was a smoking room for theater patrons, accessed from the east side of the lobby.  A second door led to basement dressing rooms, engine room, etc. 

Story 1099