They said it was absolutely fireproof.

They spent over a million dollars building the place and it showed.

Architectural critics hailed it as beautiful, elegant and ready for large wealthy crowds.

There was an asbestos curtain that could be dropped onto the stage and a large skylight

that could vent flames and smoke away from the crowds.

They said the Iroquois Theater was as safe as you could get in the city of Chicago.

The theater could seat a little over 1600 people across three levels.

That's a lot of people crammed into a small space and while the owners bragged about how

fireproof the place was, it was poorly designed for the quick exit of a sold-out audience.

So when a fire broke out in December of 1903, right in the middle of a matinee performance

of Mr. Bluebeard, they quickly realized they had a problem.

It didn't help that the show had been vastly oversold.

Close to 500 additional standing room only tickets had been made available, bringing the

audience to nearly 2,200 people.

This over 2,000 people all trying to run to an exit at the same time.

Hundreds of people fighting for an open window or a crammed doorway.

A quarter of them would never make it out alive, making it the deadliest theater fire in

America.

During the recovery efforts, first responders spent over five hours carrying the dead out

of the building.

Over 150 charred corpses were piled there, sometimes ten bodies high.

And the brick alleyway behind the theater.

...