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Relay rescue work in the utility stairwell
Narrow and semi-enclosed, the utility stairwell was
located in the southeast corner of the structure. It
consisted of multiple flights of stairs from ground
level to the third floor. The stairs were mostly
obscured from public view because they were designed
to give theater employees and vendors private access
to the manager's office and restrooms. When the
grand lobby was filled with theatergoers, a vendor
needing to talk to business manager Tom Noonan would
have entered through a front door, turned
immediately to the right, and ascended the utility
stairs leading to the second-floor landing and the
doorway into Noonan's office. A janitor on route to
attend to a plugged toilet in a third-floor rest
room would not ascend the grand stair case alongside
theater guests; he would tote his plunger and mop up
the utility stairwell and use a passkey at the
landing between the 2nd and third floors. A female
attendant in the ladies room on the third floor
would probably have had a passkey.
Passkey
The passkey opened a locked door leading to a short
flight of stairs up to the third-floor promenade.
The door was kept locked to prevent access to the
third floor by street traffic. Without it, would-be
thieves — of seats or pockets — could easily enter a
front door, slip into the utility stairwell and gain
access to the third-floor promenade and auditorium.
Pickpockets were rampant in the Victorian era, and
reports from police and fire rescuers of thieves
boldly entering the still smoldering theater to
steal jewelry from dead bodies demonstrate that
street criminals were a very real part of the
Randolph Street landscape.
Like floodwaters
Audience members fleeing the auditorium ran into any
available opening they thought might be an exit.
Finding the stairs immediately outside the
auditorium exit impassable, a group of twenty to
thirty people from the third-floor balcony ran south
on the promenade, toward the front of the theater. Figure
2 The theater was dark, but for daylight coming through
the windows at the front of the theater, so they
knew there were exits in that direction.
All options bad
At the end of the promenade was a ladies restroom
and a narrow utility stairwell.* At the bottom of
that flight of stairs was a locked door. Behind them
was darkness and flames; ahead was safety. Given a
few more minutes, they could have opened the door,
but time wasn't on their side. Had they immediately
turned back and returned to the stairs leading to
the foyer, they might have clambered over the bodies
stacked on those stairs and made their way to the
foyer, but they had no way of knowing that time had
run out.
While they tried to open the locked door in the
utility stairwell, behind them, a fireball, caused
by a back draft on the stage, hurled into the
third-floor balcony. The flames, nourished by
carpet, drapery, seat upholstery and clothing,
produced smoke that poured from the auditorium into
the promenade, where it was joined by smoke rising
from the two lower floors of the theater and was
pushed into the utility stairwell.
Opening the transom over the locked door, in a
futile effort to find a way to open the door,
created a draft that drew more smoke into the
passageway. While the group in the stairwell coughed
and screamed, three men on the other side of the
door struggled to free them.
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Through the transom
Amongst the group in the utility stairwell was
James M. Strong, his wife, mother, and teenage niece. It was James
who smashed the transom glass with his fist, climbed
up and through the transom, probably boosted up by
others in the stairwell, and dropped down onto the
landing. He looked frantically, and in vain, for a
passkey, then ran down the next flight of stairs to
find something with which to break down the door.
Figure
4
On his way down, James met another man on his way up.
It was William
McMullen, the fellow who moments before had been operating the
arc lamp that sparked and started the fire.
William McMullen
Seeing the loft above the stage consumed in flames,
McMullen had rescued a child from a first-floor box
seat, then headed to the third floor to see to the
safety of a friend.** Figures
1
and 3.
James requested McMullen's help at the locked door
and McMullen somewhere found a short board. The pair
ran up to the third-floor landing and beat at the
door.
Figure 5
James overcome
William boosted James up with the idea that he would
try to pull people through the transom. By this
time, it is probable that the voices on the other
side of the door had gone silent as smoke poured
through the transom. James was overcome by smoke and
dropped back onto the floor next to McMullen, who
helped him stumble outside where a wagon took him to
Michael Reese Hospital.
Figure
6
Fireman Roche and his ax
McMullen headed back up the stairs and met a fireman
on the second-floor landing. Michael
Roche had
just climbed a ladder and broken through a
second-floor window at the front of the theater,
entering Noonan's office.
Figure 7
Roche brought his ax and chopped out panels in the
locked door so it could be opened. All but a couple
of the people behind the door were dead. Roche and
McMullen pulled some of the bodies into the
third-floor Music Room.
Figures 8 and 9
McMullen passes baton
McMullen was overcome by smoke and minor burn
injuries. Roche or other firemen carried him
downstairs and over to the medical triage group at
Thompson's diner. Roche went back up to the
third-floor balcony where he was joined by other
firefighters who helped remove bodies from the
stairwell.
Figure 10
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