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Noonan's Iroquois experience
Iroquois Theater manager
Will J. Davis testified that his twenty-six-year-old business manager/corporate
treasurer, Thomas J. Noonan Jr. (1877–1944), made two valiant attempts to reach
the ushers.* Reportedly Noonan went through the window in his office, out onto
one of three small ornamental balconies that looked over the grand hall / foyer and
jumped to the floor into the crowd below (see accompanying illustration).
The throng of people leaving the theater swept him out into the street. Noonan
headed back into the theater but faced a crush of fleeing people moving in the opposite direction. Reportedly
he ran back up to his second-floor office via a utility stairwell at the far east side of the vestibule to reach his
second floor office, passing by the locked door on the landing that led to the
stairs up to the third floor. That presents a puzzle. Throughout most
of the
Iroquois fire, William McMullen, James Strong and fireman Michael
Roche were working to open that same locked door.
Though all three testified at the coroners inquest,
nothing was reported about them seeing Noonan, or
about him seeing them, and Noonan was McMullen's boss, not a stranger. The only way for Noonan to have
reached the auditorium, other than trying another
trip out his office window, was up the stairwell
they were clearing. When McMullen, who was on
the landing the longest, became overcome from smoke,
fireman Roche helped him outside then went back in
and up the stairs to reach the auditorium. No
report of his mentioning that he passed Noonan on
the stairs, though it's possible, and Roche probably
wouldn't have recognized him. Nor were there
reports of testimony as to why Noonan didn't use the utility
stairwell on the west side of his office that went
up to the third floor promenade. Had I been on
the coroner's jury I'd have been saying "Let's go
over to the theater so you can show us
exactly what you did that day." What Noonan
did or didn't do on December 30, 1903 is irrelevant
to the fire but the truthfulness of his
testimony might say legions about the honesty of
what he says he did for the five weeks leading up to
the fire.
Noonan's prior experience
Three years earlier Noonan had been treasurer at another theater managed by Davis, the
Columbia Theater
in Chicago. (That also burned!).
Stage carpenter/manager James E. Cummings technically reported to Noonan but Cummings'
history as an employee of Will J. Davis also went back to the Columbia and he was twenty
years older than Noonan, both of which might have blurred the line of authority.
Cummings was the fellow who failed to recognize and take corrective action of the strip
lamps that obstructed the Iroquois fire curtain.
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Noonan bio
Noonan was the son of Thomas
and Johanna Flynn Noonan. Possibly his father
was an old friend of Will J. Davis, dating back to
the American Civil War.
A Thomas Noonan had served with Davis on the
USS Blackhawk during the American Civil War and
was a coworker with him after the war in Natchez
at the Revenue Service.
In the years after the fire
On January 6, 1904 Noonan was
questioned at length by attorneys representing the
Chicago Fire department,
James Fulkerson and William Rothmann. His
testimony is one of the most thorough that was
published. (Check it out but be
forewarned that it's a giant file and might choke
your device.)
Noonan was indicted for manslaughter on February 20,
1904. In October he was granted a change of
venue to Peoria, Illinois where jurors were hoped to
be more objective about the case. In studying
the case, however, circuit court judge
George Kersten discovered flaws in the
prosecutions case that required him to quash the
three indictments then standing (Davis, Noonan and
Cummings). Kersten showed the prosecutor where
they'd gone wrong and gave them time to correct the
charges before indictments were reissued. In
February, 1905 the prosecution re-indicted Davis,
brought indictments against two new defendants, city
building inspectors,
Edward Laughlin and
George Williams, and dropped charges against
Noonan and Cummings.
A few years later, in 1906, a Thomas Noonan of
Chicago filed a patent for a fire escape.
Seems possible it's the same guy but I haven't
verified it.
The Noonan of this story remained in the theater industry for a while but by
the 1940s had become a hog driver in Chicago's
stockyards. He married a woman named Bridget.
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