The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1904-01-08

E 81
done. 1t descended about half way
and then stuck. The fire thus was
given practically a flue, through
which a strong draft was setting, aid
ed by the doors which had been
thrown open in the front of the the
alter. With a roar, the flames shot
through the opening over the. heads of
the people and clear up to those in
the first balcony, caught them and
burned them to death where they sat.
Immediately following this rush of
flames there came an explosion,
which lifted the entire roof of the the
alter from its walls, shattering the
great skylight into fragments. AS
soon as the flames first appeared be-
yond the curtain a man in the hall
shouted fire" and the entire audi
ence arose as one person and made
for the doors. 1t is believed that the
explosion was caused by the flames
coming in contact with the gas reser-
voirs of the theater, causing them to
burst. Will ]. Davis, manager of the
theater, said after the catastrophe,
that if the people had remained in
their seats and had not been excited
by the cry of fire, not a single life
would have been lost. This is, how
ever, contradicted by the statements
of the firemen, who found numbers
of people sitting in their seats, their
faces directed toward the stage as If
the performance was still going on.
1t was the opinion of the firemen that
once by the flow of gas which came
from behind the asbestos curtain.
About 1900 people were in the the
alter. Three hundred Of these were
on the first door, the remainder being
in the balconies and in the Railways
back of them.
The theater is modelled after the
Opera Comique in Paris, anu from the
rear of each balcony there are three
doors leading out to the front of the
theater. Two of these doorways are
at the end of the balcony and n be-
ing in the center. The audience in
it's rush seems to have for the greater
part choose to fee to the left entrance
and to attempt to make its way down
the eastern stairway, leading to
the lobby of the theater. Outside of
the people burned and suffocated by
gas, it was in these two doorways on
the first and second balconies that
the greatest loss of life occurred.
When the firemen entered the build
ing, the dead were found stretched in
a pile reaching from the head of the
stairway at least eight feet from the
door back to a point about five feet in
the rear of the door.
Doorway damned with Bodies
This mass of dead bodies in the cen
ter of the doorway reached to within
two feet of the top of the passage
way. All of the corpses at this point
were women and children. The fight
for life WHICH must have taken place
at these two points, is something that
is simply beyond human power to
adequately describe. Only a faint
idea of its horror could be derived
from the aspect of the bodies as they
lay. Women on top of these masses
of dead had been overtaken by death
as they were crawling on their hands
and knees over the bodies of those
who had died before. Others lay with
arms stretched out in the direction to-
ward which lay life and safety, hold
ing in their hands fragments of gar
ments not their own. They we're evil
IDENTIFY torn from the clothing Of others
whom they had endeavored to pull
down and trample under foot as they
fought for their own lives. AS the po-
lice removed layer after layer of dead
in these doorways, the sight became
too much even for police and fremen,
hardened as they r to such scenes,
to endure. The bodies were in such
an inextricable mass, and so tightly
were they jammed between the sides
of the door and the walls that it was
impossible to lift them one by one
and carry them out. The only posi-
BILE thing to do was to seize a limb,or
some other portion of the body and
pull with main strength. Men worked
at the task with tears run
ming down their cheeks. and the
cries of the rescuers could be heard
even in the hall below where this aw-
full scene was being enacted. A few
men were compelled to abandon their
task and give it over to others whose
nerves had not as yet been shaken by
the awful experience. AS one by one
the bodies were dragged out of the
water-soaked, blackened mass of
corpses, the spectacle became more
and more heartrending. There were
women whose clothing was torn com,
pletely from their bodies above the
waists, whose bosoms had been tram
pied into d pulp and whose faces we're
marred beyond all power of Identified
ton.
Bodies Piled In Aisles.
In the first and second balconies
bodies were piled up in the aisles
three and four deep, where one had
fallen and others tripped over the
PROSTATE forms. All had died where
they lay, evidently %suffocated by the
gas. Others we're bent over the backs
Of seats where they had been thrown
by the rush of people for the doors
and killed without hardly a chance to
rise from their seats. One man was
found with his back bent nearly
double, his spinal column having been
fractured as he was thrown back
ryo ri A woman WOO found o,1+ poarl1,