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A Kilfyre extinguisher consisted of
three pounds of baking soda in a cardboard tube
the width of a Pillsbury Poppin Fresh canister.
Chicago Alderman Scully tried to do damage control
for his merchandise, but according to laboratory
tests by fire investigator
John Ripley Freeman,
Kilfyre was no more effective than table salt.
Scully's assertion that thirty-six tubes of Kilfyre
would have put out the Iroquois fire was beyond
nonsense. If every member of the audience and cast
had been equipped with a tube of Kilfye, it wouldn't
have given the fire pause.
Freeman gave sellers of
chemical tubes like Scully the benefit of the doubt
insofar as their honest assumption of product
effectiveness. That explains Scully's pre-Iroquois
viewpoint but not his doubling down thereafter. A Kilfyre
tube might have put out a small blaze at the
kitchen range or in an office wastebasket, but even
a rudimentary knowledge of theater fires of the
period made dry chemical tubes a silly addition to
fire fighting equipment in a theater. It is a
testimony to Freeman's thoroughness and scholarly
approach that he nonetheless conducted thorough
tests on tubes.
Kilfyre was the 1895 brainchild of
George H. Carpenter, a manufacturer of pipe organs and a financial
investor. He founded the Monarch Fire Appliance Company to market
the product, later selling the rights to
bicycle manufacturer, Pope Manufacturing Company.
The product remained in the marketplace until at least 1913.
Like most Chicago alderman, John Scully was busy with a side business.
Canadian-born alderman John E. Scully (1867–1955), a
reporter-turned-engineer-turned-politician, ran as a
Republican and served as a representative of the
thirteenth ward from 1901 to 1909. He was best
remembered, however, for an act of bravery or lunacy
in 1892. A staffer in the city engineering office at
the time, he volunteered to dive eighty feet down
into Lake Michigan in January to chip ice away from
an intake valve that was blocking water flow to the
city. He was sucked into the pipe and spent an hour
there before the power was shut off, and he
could be freed. His 1910 run for mayor was unsuccessful. His
wife is thought to have been the former Julia Baker
(1868–1931). They had no children.
Frank J. Daggett (1863–1939) worked in the insurance
industry in 1900 but in the 1903 city directory
described himself as a demonstrator. He was
married to Rhoda Emiline Emily Updyke,▼1
and they
had one child. Seven years after the Iroquois fire,
he was working as a retail clerk. The only evidence
I found to support Scully's claim that Daggett had
experience with firefighting was a 1901 newspaper
story about a Frank Daggett putting out a blaze on
roof shingles at the Columbia Yacht club using a
chemical extinguisher.▼2
As to Scully's other
claim, that Daggett was in the theater business
before Iroquois Theater manager
Will J. Davis,
Daggett wasn't born until nine years after Davis
became a theatrical road company manager.
Discrepancies and addendum
1. Some genealogy
researchers match Frank up with a childless Emily Bodine.
2. Daggett as the member of a yacht club seems
unlikely, but his craft may have been modest; I've
known dirt-poor owners of 20-30 footers. It might
explain how he and a deep-sea diver became
acquainted.
Made-up
scenes and people?
Herbert Cawthorn played
Irish Patsha in Mr Bluebeard
John R. Freeman Theater
fire investigator
Other discussions you might find interesting
Story 2875
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.
