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As a
twenty-three-year-old cub reporter,
covering the premier of the the Iroquois on November 23, 1903 was a plum
assignment for Charles Collins. The opportunity was brought about by his editor having sent the paper's
official drama
critic to another play (Ulysses). In Tinder Box,▼1 contemporary author Anthony P.
Hatch relied extensively on his conversations with Collins about his
experiences at the Iroquois. Charles description of the premier as related
by Hatch remind me of the opening of James Cameron's 1997 film, Titanic.
The theater was filled with wealthy and influential Chicagoans dressed in
their best finery, arriving in horse-drawn carriages instead of automobiles,
and with less dramatic hats than would be popular in 1912. As noted in the
Iroquois Theater program,
"to see and be seen." Some of their relatives and children would be there
three weeks later when nearly six hundred people died.
On December 30, 1903, when his editor wanted a story about ticket scalping at the
Iroquois, Charles was assigned to get the story from Iroquois owners Will J.
Davis or Harry Powers. Will J. Davis was at the funeral of an old friend but
Harry Powers was entertaining guests in a box at the Iroquois and agreed to
talk with Collins.
Decades later, Charles' recollection of their brief conversation was that
Powers was deceptive and manipulative, asserting that Powers was up to his
eyeballs in the scalping game.
About an hour later Charles was at the Inter Ocean newspaper building when a clerk there commented upon a fire
alarm at the Iroquois Theater. Charles called his editor at the Herald,
Al Bergener, who had already heard about the fire alarm and told Collins
to return to the office four blocks away. By the time Collins reached
Bergener's office, more news had come in and Bergerer sent
him back to the Iroquois post-haste. By the time Collins arrived at the
Iroquois, roughly ninety minutes since his unsatisfactory interview with
Powers, the street was filled with fire equipment and horse-drawn wagons as
streams of body carriers deposited blanket-shrouded victims on sidewalks and
in wagons. Bodies flanked each side of the entrance for a hundred yards as
police blocked thousands of people from entering the theater or pilfering
the dead.
Charles spent the night on re-writes as his fellow reporters
visited funeral homes, hospitals and victim's families to confirm identities
and contribute details to the growing list of victims.
Charles William Collins (1880–1964) was
from Madison, Indiana, one of three sons born to Smith and Mary Wood Collins.▼2 He entered the University
of Chicago in 1899 and soon became one of the college's most active student
journalists. Though he graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree,▼3 his
commitment to a journalism career was set, and he joined the staff of the
Record-Herald newspaper in Chicago upon graduation.▼4
In the years after the fire
In a journalism career lasting six decades Collins worked as a
reporter, drama critic and columnist, on the staffs of various Chicago newspapers,
including Inter-Ocean (1908–1909,
the Chicago Evening Post (1914–1925), and the Chicago Tribune (1930–1964).
Collins was also active in the Illinois State Historical Society and
authored/co-authored three books and two plays.
A correction to an error in Tinder Box
Collins did marry. In 1924 Charles married Margaret Francis Norton (1905–1972), who was decades younger. The
marriage didn't last and Margaret married an investment banker five years later.
Discrepancies and addendum
1. Tinder box : the Iroquois Theatre Disaster, 1903, Anthony P. Hatch.
3. The nation's first college journalism program
would not appear for another five years, at the
University of Missouri in 1908.
4. Charles' inclination to get busy
on his career may have been strengthened by the February 1903 death of his
older brother, James Wood Collins. His death was presumably unrelated to an incident
in July 1901. James had been the engineer
on a Baltimore & Ohio train that was robbed by a team of bungling masked
bandits. The train crew was forced to stop the train on a deserted stretch
of track near Millers Station, IN at the Indiana-Illinois state line about
thirty miles southeast of Chicago. James and the train fireman were
terrorized at gunpoint and forced to uncouple two cars while other gunmen
kept passengers inside the train with repeated warning shots. The thieves
dynamited open a mail car and fled rather than trying the adjacent express
car in which was stored thousands of dollars of gold and silver coming from
east coast banks. They grabbed James' watch on the way out. A porter ran for
an hour to reach the nearest telegraph office at Whiting, IN to request
assistance. A man named John W. Brown was arrested three weeks later in Auburn, IN.
but the case was dismissed when no witnesses could be produced and several of
Brown's fellow townsmen turned out to testify in his defense. I didn't find
newspaper reports of the crime having been solved, in part because the only thing
stolen was James' watch, and no one was injured. The railroad and post office
were not motivated to pursue it.
Made-up
scenes and people?
Newspaper coverage
Iroquois Theater fire
Famous Pulitzer newspaper
cartoonist Iroquois feature
Other discussions you might find interesting
Story 3009
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.
