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On a Wednesday afternoon December 30 in 1903 a theater
performance in Chicago turned deadly.
During the second act of a performance of
Mr. Bluebeard at
the newly built Iroquois Theater, a stage fire spread to the auditorium. In roughly
fifteen minutes it took the lives of nearly six hundred people, earning the
status it retains today as America's worst theater disaster. In victim lists published by the Chicago Tribune
and Chicago Daily Tribune, lists that were picked up and run in at least twenty-eight non-Chicago newspapers, and in the
Marshall Everett disaster book,▼1 was seven-year-old Lester Doty.
Newspapers reported nothing as to other attendees
in Lester's party, or their
seating. He was said to be the son of an
executive or "prominent steel magnate" of the Illinois Steel corporation,
a man sometimes identified as L.C. Doty, L.V. Doty or L.B. Doty — who was actually L.D. Doty
— residing at 6030 Kimbark Ave. in Chicago.
Some reports said Lester was trampled to death, others that he was burned and overcome by smoke.
At first glance that brief listing appeared to offer more information than available
for many other victims. When I started digging, however, the information was found
wanting. There were no follow-up mentions in newspapers of a Doty at the Iroquois, no death
certificate was issued for a child by that name or address. No
funeral information was published, and contrary to most other influential
relatives of Iroquois Theater victims, the death of the son of an Illinois Steel executive
was not mentioned in steel industry trade publications.▼2
The Doty who was a purchasing executive for Illinois Steel was
a former New Yorker, Leman David Doty (1846–1914) — sometimes spelled Lehman
or referred to by the nickname Louis. He and his wife, Harriet L. Harvey
Doty, lived with their children at 6030 Kimbark Avenue.▼3 Leman and
Harriet had two sons: twenty-eight-year-old Leman Edgar Doty Jr.▼4 and
fourteen-year-old George Harvey Doty. No seven year olds; no son named Lester,
no child with L as a middle initial.
The Lester who attended the Iroquois Theater fire could have been a visiting relative, though in cursory genealogy searches I didn't
find a Lester I could easily connect to Leman Doty.
Perhaps a
Doty descendant will find that connection and contact me. The problem
with Lester being a visitor, however, is that the National Guard could not have prevented the hometown newspaper
from publishing a story about one of their own having a connection to the Iroquois
disaster but I found no such story about a Doty at the Iroquois Theater fire.
Until I find more information, all that can
be said with any degree of probability is that a child with the last name of Doty
may have been injured in the Iroquois Theater fire but survived, and the child was related to the
Leman Doty of the Illinois Steel Corporation.
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