Weekly Arizona journal-miner. [volume] (Prescott, Ariz.) 1903-1908, 1904-01-06
|MIRTH TURNED
TO MOURNING
Hundreds Burned in
Chicago Theater.
Many Trampled to Death in Mad
Rush to Escape From
the Flames.

common with all of our people
= throughout this land, 1 extend through
: you, to the people of Chicago, my
deepest sympathy in the terrible cat
astrophe which has befallen them.
Signed, Theodore Roosevelt.
Today brought with it only legacy
of yesterdays monumental calamity
and prediction that the list of fatal
tiles in the Iroquois theater fire will
run over six hundred. OF 157 who
were injured, probably one third can
not live.
A party consisting of Mrs. Lucy
earn and two children, Harriet Wolfe
the ten year old daughter of Ludwig
! Wolfe, a millionaire business man,
and Miss Burke, a dressmaker are
among the missing. Wolfe's entire
family searched the entire night
through hospitals, and morgues and
failed to find any trace of them.
Graeme Stewart, the republican ma
tional committeeman from Illinonis,
spent the entire night also in search
ing for Mrs. F. NJ. Fox, of Winnekta,
Ills, and her three children. Mrs.
Fox is the daughter of W. NJ. Hoyt,
of the W. NJ. Hoyt Grocery company,
one of the largest in the west. Mrs.
Fox was taken home, but none of the
children have been found.
Mr.. and Mrs. VaninGen of Kenosha,
Wis, are among the injured, and their
four children are all missing.
Chas. Dexter, of the Boston baseball
club, and Frank Houseman, a former
Chicago ball player, who occupied a
box, say that but for Eddie Foy's
presence Of mind the death roll would
have been doubled.
Clinton G. Meeker, a clerk in the
registry division of the post office,
probably lost his entire family in the
fire, consisting of his wife, two daugh-
tiers and two SONS.
Mayor Harrison was on his way
south on hunting trip and Comp
troller AcGann was acting mayor. A
telegram was sent to Mayor Harrison,
informing him of the fire, and he ar
rived here today on the first train
from Oklahoma where the telegram
overlook him.
Coroner Treager has placed the
theater charnel house under a tight
police guard. The death of Mrs. F.
Morton Fox, daughter of VIM. H.
Hoyt, and her three children will be
taken as the basis for the investiga-
tion by the coroner. The coroner said
today:
eff any persons are responsible for
this fire, they will be prosecuted to
the full extent of the law. The inves-
tigstion of the fire Will be thorough
and complete and an effort will be
made to fix responsibility where it
belongs, if it was caused by any act
of carelessness.
The coroner's jury impannelled is
as follows; L. Fl. Meyer, secretary
of the Kennedy Furniture Co. DIR.
Potter Byrnes, salesman for the Lyon
q Healey musical company; Walter
Clingman, salesman for the Tobey
Furniture Co. A.; Jos. A. Cummings,
manager of Browning, King & Co. :;
Geo. W. Atkins, credit man for Mar
shall Fields & Co.; John W. Fine,
salesman for A. H. Revelle Il Co.
Five bushel baskets we're filed with
the purses, gloves and handkerchiefs
of the fleeing mob .and terror stricken
ed to hold the overshoes and shoes
found.
At one o'clock this afternoon the es-
innate of the dead is placed at 564.
AS to the origin of the fire &C
counts are conflicting and none GER
tain, but the best reason given is
that the electric wire near the lower |
part of piece Of drop scenery sud
denly broke and grounded. The fire
spread rapidly towards the front of the |
stage, causing the members of the |
chorus. who we're then Iengaged in a
performance, to Tee to the wings |
with screams of terror. The fire in |
itself up to this time was not serious |
and could possibly have been check
ed had not the asbestos curtain failed
to work.
On the other hand the management |
of the theatre says that the fire was
not caused by an electric wire or at |
tributable to any defect in the equip |
ment of the theater. 1t started, they |
claim, by the bursting of a calcium
light apparatus. The conclusion was
so great that it blew out the skylight |
over the stage and auditorium.
The scenss after the fire were indies
cribable. As one by one the bodies
we're dragged out, q water soaked, black |
ened mass of corpses, the cries of the
spectators became more and more |
heartrending. There was one woman |
whose clothing was torn completely |
from her body above the waist, whose
bosom had been trampled into pulp |
and whose face was married 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. |
In the aisles nearest the doors the |
scenes were narrowing in the extreme. |
Bodies lay in every conceivable atti-
tude, many of them half naked. There |
we're scores and scores of people |
whose faces had been trampled COM
pletely of by the heels of those who |
rushed over them, and in one aisle
the body Of man was found with not |
a vestige Of clothing, flesh or bone re
naming above the waist line. The
entire upper portion of his body had |
been cut into mince meat and carried |
away by the feet Of those who had |
trampled on him and his head was
missing and could not be found.
The cause of the ''jamming'' of the
asbestos curtain, which was considered |
as the cause of the great disaster was
explained today by an inspector He /