The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1904-01-05


been checked had not the asbestos
curtain failed to work. AS soon as the
fire was discovered Eddie Foy, the
chief comedian of the company, shout
ed to lower the curtain, and this was
Immediately done. 1t descended about
half way and then stuck.
The fire was thus given practically
a flue through which strong draft
was setting, aided by the doors, which
had been thrown open in the front of
the theater. With roar and bound
the flames shot through the opening
over the heads of the people on the
first floor, and reaching clear mp 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, pre-
sumed to be gas reservoir, which lifted
the entire roof of the theater from its
walls, shattering the great skylight
into fragments.
AS soon as the flames first appeared
beyond the curtain a man in the rear
of the hall shouted, Fire, fire - and
the entire audience rose as one person
and made for the doors.
As near as can be estimated about
| 1900 people were in the theater. Three
hundred of these were on the first
floor, the remainder being in the bal
comics and in the halls back of them.
Outside of the people burned and
suffocated by gas, it was in these two
doorways on the first aud second bal
comics that The greatest loss of life
occurred.
When the fremen 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 2 point about five feet in
the rear of the door.
The fight for life which must have
taken place is something beyond the
power of man to 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 mad
died before.
Others lay with arms stretched out
in the direction toward which lay life
and safety. holding in their hands
fragments of garments not their own.
They were evidently torn from the
clothing of others whom they had
endeavored to pull down and trample
under foot as they fought for their wn
lives.
The bodies were in such an inextric-
able 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 possible thing to do was to
seize limb or some other portion of
the body and pull with main strength
Men worked at the task with tears
running down their cheeks, and the
sobs of the rescuers could be heard
even in the hall below where this
awful scene was being enacted.
A number of the men were compelled
to abandon their tasks and give them
over to others whose nerves had not
as yet been shaken by the awful ex-
perience. As one by one the bodies
were dragged out of the water-soaked,
blackened mass of eorpses, the specta-
Gle became more and more heart
rending.
There were women whose clothing
was torn completely from their bodies
above the waist, whose bosoms had
been trampled into pulp and whose
faces were marred beyond all hope OF
Identification.
One man was found with his back
bent nearly double, his spinal column
having been fractured as he was
thrown backward. A woman was
found nearly cut in half by the back
of the seat, she having been forced
over it face downward
The body of man was found with
not a vestige of clothing, flesh or bone
remaining above the waist. The en-
tire upper portion of his body had been
tramped into mince meat and carried
away by the feet of those who had
trampled on him. A search was made
with hope of finding his head, but at
a late hour tonight it had not been
discovered and all that will ever tell
his friends who he was is the color and
appearance of the clothing on the
lower limbs.
After the curtain had refused to de-
scend, there came an explosion of the
gas tanks, and the is supposed to have
caused many deaths.
Disasters in which great loss of life