Lancaster enterprise. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1891-1905, 1904-01-06
FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE
In CITY OF CHICAGO.
Nearly Six Hundred Human Beings De.
stroyed in Theatre Fire.

Chicago Dec. 30 About $50 people in ten min
utes this afternoon during roquois theatre the new
est the largest, and human could
|vary The police 536 The estimate of
the is 500 Besides this there people
at midnight the majority of whom probably among
in the morgues and various undertaking Eighty
six of the dead have been positively identified
few of these people burned death by fire. many
Were by gas and scores amped death the
for exits 1t hours before the number
clothing torn to rags or burned to cnder and
their faces have been crushed into unrecognizabe pulp
safety.
The fire broke during the act of the play "Nr
the theatre since its erection The company which very
large escaped to the streets in safety nearly all of them how
ever being compelled flee snowy streets with no
The accounts origin the fire are conflicting and none
of them certain but the best given that an electric wire
near the lower part of piece of drop scenery suddenly broke
Foy the chief comedian of the company shouted
curtain and this Immediately done. 1t descended
half way and then stuck The fire thus given practically
Hue through which strong draft setting, aided by
doors which had been thrown in the front of the
win roar and bound the flames shot through the opening
the heads of the people in the first reaching
they sat Immediately following this there came
an explosion which lifted the entire roof the theatre
walls, shatterng the great skylight into Fragments
AS the flames appeared beyond the curtain man
in the of the hall shouted Fire fire the
ence rose and made for the doors.
that the explosion caused by flames coming
with the reservoirs of the theatre, causing
their faces directed towards the if the performance
still going 1t the opinion of the remen that po
PIE had been suocated by the flow gas came
from behind the asbestos curtain
As near as can be estimated at the time about 1900
people in tie theatre Three hundred these
first floor the balance being in the upper balconies
back of them Outside Of the people burned and
gas it was in the doorways the first and second balconies
that the greatest loss o life occurred When the
the building the dead found stretched in pile reaching
from the head of the stairway least eight
back to point about five feet in the Of the This,
mass Of dead bodies in the the doorway reached
within two feet of the of the passage All of the corps
at this point and children. Women
Of dead bodies had been overaken by
crawling hands and knees the bodies those who
died before Others lay With stretched the
toward which lay lie and safety holding their
ments of not their They
from others whom they had endeavocd pull
undcrfOo they fought for their police
hremen removed layer after layer dead dOorwav
sight became much for them hardened
such scenes to endure The bodies such extricabe
and tightly they jammed between
door and the walls that it impossible lift them by
one and carry them The only possible thing
seize limb other portion of the body pull with
main strength Men worked at the task with running down
their cheeks and the Ob of the could
In the hall below where this awful being
number OF the compelled abandon their and
1T others whose had been
by the awful experience AS by the bodies
ged out OF the wateoaed backened corpse
tace became and heartrendng There