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At the Iroquois Theater fire in 1903 Chicago, workers
at the
Northwestern University building
behind the theater rescued about a dozen people
who would have died without their help. Painting contractors and other
office occupants muscled
ladders and wood planks out windows and across an alley known as Couch Place to create bridges.
They then kneeled on the planks at the Northwestern end to pin them in position until the last person capable
of crawling made it across to safety, and helped the escapees off the plank when
they reached the window at Northwestern.
As the fire inside the theater worsened, the workmen watched people on the fire
escapes jump and fall sixty feet to their death.
The workmen held fast to the planks while watching people catch fire and burn before
their eyes. The fire inside the theater auditorium would soon burn itself
out, but the workmen had no way of knowing that. They would have felt the heat
of the fire and perhaps wondered how long before Northwestern caught fire, too. When
a few of the planks fell, lesser men might have scrapped the effort and fled, but
these workmen stayed, found new planks, ran them out the window again. Only a quarter of those
balcony occupants who made the
plank crossing survived. While waiting for their turn to cross the fire escapes,
many suffered severe burns and respiratory injuries. The workmen laid the dying
on the floor and covered them as best they could. Reportedly one looky-loo
found his way to the third floor to leer at partly clad female victims.
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Plank rescuers in Couch Place
Though some early newspaper stories reported three painters helping
with the plank rescue work, eventually nine workmen were cited,
albeit in a rather hodgepodge fashion. They were:
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Charles H. Cubbon — head of the painting contracting
firm, testified at Coroner's inquest, and a majority of his
testimony was published in 1904 newspapers. His role in
the Iroquois disaster was forgotten until his 1916 obituary,
then forgotten again.
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Albert A. Cubbon and Walter Cubbon — two of
Charles' sons. Their presence at the disaster only
came to light in an Iowa newspaper when their sister,
Sarah Cubbon Lee, wrote about it in a letter to her husband
in Iowa. Albert and Walter were never mentioned in
Chicago newspaper coverage of the Iroquois Theater.
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Morris Eckstorm — assistant engineer at Northwestern.
His only recognition came in a Cincinnati newspaper.
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George H. Elliot — clerk at an Ogden Gas office
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George Liebert — sometimes referred to as Joseph,
was pictured in the Chicago Tribune's December 31, 1903 stories
about the Iroquois fire. His involvement in the Iroquois
disaster was mentioned once more in his lifetime in an obscure
1918 reference. (See accompanying clipping.)
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W. T. Matthews — worked for Cubbon, presumed to have been a
painter or paper hanger.
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William L. Payne — a painter & paper hanger,
worked in Chicago as early as 1890.
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Fred H. Rea — a student working in the dental lab
or law department. Testified at Coroner's inquest.
May not have participated in plank rescue work. (See
accompanying clipping.)
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Murrill Tierney — stationary engineer at Northwestern.
Newspapers did not mention him at the time of the fire; the only
way we know of his involvement is that it was mentioned in his 1906
obituary.
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Charles H. Cubbon & Sons Contracting
Because he testified at the Coroner's inquest and
owned the painting contracting company, Charles' name was most commonly mentioned in
newspaper stories about plank rescues but there were three Cubbons there that day,
Charles and his two sons.
Charles Henry Cubbon (1848–1916) and his two
sons, Albert S. Cubbon (1879–1914) and Walter
F. Cubbon (1875–1933)
were working a painting job in Booth Hall in Northwestern's law department.
Cubbon later sent an engraved portion of the plank
to the parents of
William McLaughlin, who died from burns incurred
while helping people climb onto one of the planks
stretched across Couch Place. Not sure that's a
souvenir I'd have welcomed as the boy's mother
but it was probably well intended.
Charles Cubbon and Sarah Stewart Cubbon (1845–1918)
had five boys and one daughter, who was thirty-one at
the time of the Iroquois Theater fire. She was
visiting her parents over the 1903 Christmas holidays and wrote
to her husband in Iowa to describe her father and
brother's experience at the Iroquois Theater.
Nothing much went right for the Cubbons after 1910.
Charles and Walter went bankrupt in 1911, and two of
the Cubbon sons died in 1914. Milton Cubbon, a
newspaper journalist, died of tuberculosis in March, and in
October, Albert Cubbon accidentally drank
poison.
Morris Eckstorm
Morris Eckstorm (1870–1906) worked as a fireman in
1900 but continued to work as a stationary engineer until
his death. A native of Sweden, he was married to Emma
Junneson and had one daughter, five-year-old Ella. He became
a naturalized citizen in 1899. He and Emmy had a son before
his death in 1906 when thrown beneath the wheels of a streetcar
at State and Randolph, less than a block from the Iroquois.
According to the only newspaper mention of his role at the
Iroquois disaster, he and his boss, M. J. Tierney, helped
catch jumping women. I think that means they helped
women climb off the plank into Northwestern. Catching even
a lightweight person dropping thirty or sixty feet from the
second- and third-floor balconies could have been injurious.
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George Elliot
In another eight years, headlines in Chicago would have
much to say about George's employer, Ogden Gas, but in 1903, he may have thought he was
on the fast track. In city directories he gave his occupation as bookkeeper, clerk, and
chief clerk, and in 1913 in Montana, he worked as an auditor for the gas
company.▼1 In 1905
George married Frances Lyons. The wording in the story above causes me to wonder
if he was in Ogden Gas offices when the fire began. Ogden Gas offices were at 115
Dearborn (that in 1908 became 603 Dearborn). According to a January classified ad,
that then was a twelve-room brick house.
George Liebert▼2
Twelve-year-old George Liebert(1891–1940) was working
with Charles Cubbon's painting crew. Liebert went by his
middle name.
He was one of six children born to German immigrants, William, a
paint and carpentry contractor, and Minnie Lackley Liebert.
The family lived at 840 W. Madison. In his picture, he looks
like a middle-aged man, so I verified his age using multiple
records. There is a chance the newspaper matched up the wrong
photo to his name but I couldn't find another picture with which
to compare it. In later years George reported that his education
lasted until the eighth grade. That means he was on
Christmas holiday break in December 1903.
A single-paragraph story referenced a performance of some sort
on April 30, 1918, at the Billy Sunday tabernacle, referencing
Liebert helping victims cross the plank. He was a bailiff
then in the court of judge Newcomer. Nothing more was
published about his tabernacle performance.
George married the former Helen "Nellie" Jordan
(1890–1973), with whom he had three children.
In 1922, at age thirty-one, he fell three floors down an
elevator shaft and fractured his hip bone.
He worked as a shipping clerk at an ink manufacturing company,
as a court bailiff, and at the end of his life, a
postal clerk.
Fred H. Rea
Fred roomed at 3231 South Park Ave in Chicago. Some newspapers
reported he was a dental student on the second floor; others that he
was a law student. In records for years after the fire, I
failed to find either a dentist or an attorney that was a good match.
If he was a dental student on the 2nd floor, He might have only
been a witness, not a participant--a good thing. His viewing
range from Northwestern, and having the freedom to watch without worrying
that his hair was catching fire meant his description of the
fire escape situation offered a different perspective.
Murrill J. Tierney
Murrill J. Tierney
(1873–1906) sometimes went by his initials, M. J., sometimes by
Michael, and some data sources spelled Murrill as Morrell. In
1903 he lived in a one-room apartment 1403 W. 12th St. and was
married to Edna Bundy Tierney. They had one child.
In March 1906, Tierney died in an industrial accident at the Agar
Packing Company (or Western Packing & Provision) in the Union
Stockyards. His scaffold collapsed, and he died
from the fall.
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Discrepancies and addendum
Reading Charles Cubbon's obituary, you might get the impression
he was hanging on the side of the building when the fire broke out.
According to his court testimony, he was working in Booth Hall when
the fire started. The ceilings were probably in the twelve-foot-high range,
so he worked on a scaffolding plank that would have been stretched between ladders,
about four feet up (see accompanying catalog clipping).
Window sash painting on stone buildings in Chicago would not have
been scheduled for December.
1. In 1895 a powerful Chicago
political operative, Roger
C. Sullivan,
with help from mayor John P. Hopkins, finagled passage of an ordinance by the city
council that granted trading rights of Chicago's gas lines and electrical power to his
dummy corporation, Ogden Gas. Though never charged with criminal behavior,
millions of dollars fell out of the public's pockets and into his.
Here is a flattering 1905 description of the firm.
2. Spelled as Leibert in 1903 newspapers, with his
first name given as Joseph, but his name was George
M. Liebert. His middle name was sometimes cited as
Max, other times as Matt. He reported it as Max on
his World War I draft card.
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