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Frank Barr (1873-1944), a native of London, was a scene shifter and stage
carpenter employed by the Iroquois Theater.
Immediately after the fire, he was targeted for
questioning by the coroner because another stage
worker reported that Frank was the person who opened
the large double freight doors at the back of the
stage. The draft of cold air that poured through the
doors powered the fireball that swept out into the
auditorium.
I call BS on the tale of a stage worker's back draft warning. The scene on the
stage of the Iroquois during the fire was unimaginably chaotic, like hell for theater folks. Terrified people in costumes screamed and cried, dashing
about in panic while flames blazed overhead and shards of burning fabric fell
upon them. The man who opened the big stage door and the first dozen people
through it were probably standing outside shivering in Couch Place long before
anyone thought about a back draft, if at all. Newspapers and representatives
from the coroner's office spent rather a lot of time on such
red herrings.*
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Only a small portion of Frank's testimony at the
coroner's trial was reported in newspapers, and none
of it had to do with the opened freight door. By
then the critical roles of the incompletely
descended fire curtain and non-functioning ceiling
vent had made the opened stage door less important.
That and maybe the absurdity of pinning the blame for
audience deaths on cast members trying to avoid
their own deaths.
Frank testified that he was
in the basement below the stage when the fire broke
out. By the time he came upstairs, the fire was
sweeping into the orchestra pit. Frank fled to Couch
Place ally behind the theater and watched people
descend the fire escape stairs. He added to the
testimony about flames from lower floors.
In 1903 city directories,
Frank described himself as an actor but I found no
evidence of his making it to the front of the stage.
In 1900 he worked as an elevator operator. He and
his wife, Bertha Stinton Barr, married in 1898,
lived with their infant daughter, Inez, at 1071 N.
Central Park. He continued to work in the theater
until at least 1930, some years as a stage manager,
others as a property manager.
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Discrepancies and addendum
* At the risk of sounding like an armchair quarterback, it is sometimes maddening to read inquest transcripts and
first-day witness reports, and dismaying to find contemporary reports online by folks who turned off their brain
before they started copying from 1903 morons.
In court, multiple stage workers who participated in trying to lower the fire curtain gave detailed accounts of
their struggle. The curtain hung on a light fixture on the north side of the stage and half of the
curtain never dropped to the stage floor, leaving a triangular opening half the size of the proscenium opening
big enough to drive through in a car. The curtain fabric content was irrelevant. Metal-reinforced
fabric, stainless steel or solid concrete would have produced the same result if only half the proscenium opening
was covered. Under the circumstances, only God or a powerful fire hose inside the auditorium blasting toward the stage and into
that triangular opening could have kept that fire on the stage. That was the factual, evidence-based summation
to the mystery of the non-functioning fire curtain. Nonetheless, newspapers were still pumping out column
inches discussing construction of the fire curtain for a week after the fire and the coroner's office brought in
expert witness to discuss content of the fabric.
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