1908 — Jan 13, Fire and Trampling, Rhoads Opera House, Boyertown, PA — 170

— 170 Blanchard*
— 175 Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No. 2, Feb 1908, p. 151.
–167-175 New York Times. “167 Bodies Found in Theatre Ruins.” January 15, 1908.
— 173 Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database.
— 171 Wikipedia. “Rhoads Opera House.”
— 170 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 323.
— 170 Devlin. “100th Anniversary of the Rhoads Opera House Fire in Boyertown.” 2008.
— 170 Galveston Daily News, TX. “Chronology of the Year,” Jan 1, 1909, p. 12.
— 170 Lynch. “Victims of 1908 Boyertown opera house fire…” Reading Eagle, PA, 1-12-2020.
— 170 National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Key Dates in Fire History. 1996.
— 170 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 137.
— 170 National Fire Sprinkler Association. F.Y.I. 1999, p. 6.
— 170 O’Laughlin. “Rhoads Opera House…victims…Boyertown.” Reading Eagle, 1-16-2017.
— 170 Schneider. A Town In Tragedy: The Boyertown Opera House Fire, Vol. II. 1992, p.1.
— 170 WFMZ-TV News. The Rhoads Opera House Fire: The Legacy of a Tragedy.
— 169 Decatur Daily Review, IL. “Theater Death Toll in Past Disasters…,” 1-30-1922, p.1.
— 169 The Morning Call, Allentown, PA. “Other Valley-area…Disasters…” 3-26-1992.

*While we show a range of death-toll numbers the consensus of sources appears to us to be 170 fatalities. If one goes to the Reading Eagle website and type in Opera House Fire, one can access many articles commemorating and writing about this disaster. Every one we have read (most) note 170 fatalities. (Reading is about 35 miles to the west of Boyertown.)

Narrative Information

Jan 15, NYT: “Boyertown, Penn., Jan. 14 — Of the 175 persons believed to have perished in the fire and panic at Rhoades’s Opera House last night, 167 bodies have been recovered. Of these 45 have been identified at a late hour to-night.

”The proportion of victims was about nine females to one male. In almost every case the upper portions of the bodies were burned away, the lower portions below the waist being intact, showing that the members of the audience were wedged in, the flames sweeping over them and killing them as they were caught.

H. W. Fisher, the man who had charge of the stereopticon machine, the tank of which exploded and started the fire, accuses himself bitterly of having been the cause of the fire and panic. The Coroner will arrest Fisher and hold him pending the result of the inquest. Fisher said:

“I must have turned the wrong valve. There was a long drawn out hissing sound that frightened the woman and children. Several of them jumped up and screamed and ran toward the stage. The curtain was down. I don’t know what happened next. I was caught in a mob of crazy people. I was knocked down and trampled on. I struggled along. I was badly burned. I feel that I am responsible for this terrible affair.”

“It was told today that when the hissing sound was heard by the actors on the stage, some of them lifted the curtain to see what caused it. The heavy pole at the bottom of the curtain knocked over the tank of kerosene which supplied the footlights. These lamps at once exploded, and a sheet of flame ran up the flimsy curtain and the filmy[sic] scenery.

”Men jumped from their seats, and, seizing chairs, batted down women and children in their rush for safety. It was the battle of the strong.

Whole Families Wiped Out.

”Piled in a mass seven feet deep are the charred remains of at least eighty bodies, which it is believed will have to be buried in a common grave. While whole families in some instances have been wiped out, yet the members of the community were so closely related that those who are not mourning the loss of parents and children are saddened by the death of kinsmen and blood relations.

”While the calcium lighting outfit was the cause of a slight panic, it was not the fault of this mechanism that caused so much desolation. It was the upsetting of the kerosene tank feeding the footlights with oil which set fire to the building and cremated the spectators.

Coroner Robert E. Strausser of Reading and Burgess D. R. Kohler of Boyertown to-night made the rounds of the improvised morgues and counted the charred bodies. The tally at the end of the inspection showed that 167 bodies had been removed. The officials believe that there are more bodies hidden by debris. It is expected by Burgess Kohler that the death roll will reach 175.
Coroner Strausser stated to-night that he will institute a searching inquiry into the cause of the fire.

Say Doors Were Bolted.

”Survivors charged today that the swinging exit doors leading from the rear of the opera house auditorium on the second floor were bolted when the cry of fire was raised and the rush to the doors began. It was at the head of the flight of stairs guarded by the swinging exit doors that the loss of life was greatest.

”Around the head of the four-foot-wide steps the dead were piled five and six deep. The charge that the exit doors were bolted is being rigidly investigated. Several of those who escaped from the auditorium say that the doorkeeper became so interested in the tableaus that he bolted the doors, to prevent entrance of a crowd of Italians who had assembled about the entrance, and took a rear seat, where he could enjoy the show.

”When the lamps exploded many who knew of the small, narrow stairway at one side of the stage turned in that direction, and were confronted with a solid sheet of rearing fire.

Fight at the Door.

“It was at the doorway leading to Philadelphia Avenue that the whirlpool of humanity began a fight for life. This was the door said to be bolted. The narrow four-foot aisles were clogged with men turned brutes, women fighting and tearing at the faces of those in front, and children, screaming, kicking and twisting. The middle section of the Opera House, that part between the two aisles called the reserved seat section because the chairs are more comfortable and are screwed to the floor, soon emptied its contents into the gorged aisles. The sections to the right and left, in which were seats of frail construction, and which were not fastened to the floor and could be moved about at will, became battlefields.

”The crowds in these cheaper sections tripped over the loose chairs while trying to get into the aisles. The chairs, tripping up the maddened throng, slid along the floor, lost their regularity of form, and made the sections to right and left of the centre a maze in which many fell and never rose.

”Someone remembered the fire escapes built up on both sides of the building and shouted out the knowledge. Those struggling about the entrance door turned and braved the flames, which were sweeping over the ceiling and lapping at the woodwork along the side walls. The windows which gave access to the fire-escapes became scenes of minor fights.

Men Felled Women with Chairs.

”Men used the chairs which had entangled their feet as weapons with which to clear a way to the open. Several women say that they saw men respected in the community raise the chairs high over their heads and bring them down with crushing force on the heads of women and children. These men are reported among the missing, and probably died in the flames or were suffocated.

The Rev. Adam M. Weber, pastor of the St. John’s Lutheran Church, who with his daughters, was seated in the front row of the auditorium, endeavored to stay the panic. He shouted for the people to take things coolly and to file out without shoving or pushing. His words were not heard above the uproar. The curtain had by this time burned away, and the minister leaped to the stage and tried to right the kerosene tank. He was fearfully burned. He turned to protect his children and found them gone. He waited in the hall until only fifty uninjured persons were left. Then he climbed down the fire escape. Later he recovered one of his daughters. The other is reported among the missing.

“A big German who encountered the locked entrance door pounded against it with his fists. Others fumbled for the bolt. The door stood firm. The German placed his shoulders against the door, but it did not give. It was only when the crowd had pressed those next the door forward with tremendous force that the door gave way and the foremost were thrown down the steep steps. The momentum of the crowd carried others over the brink, and threw them on top of the scrambling, squirming heap at the bottom. At least a score were trampled to death in the struggle to regain their footing at the bottom of the steps. The mass of bodies obstructed the stair and prevented those in the rear from getting out.

”The Boyertown Volunteer Fire Department had water playing on the building five minutes after the alarm was sounded. The Pottstown Fire Department arrived at 11:50, but all the available water failed to quench the flames. At 5 o’clock the roof of the building fell in. At 6 o’clock this morning the fire was under control. The first body was not brought out until 8:30 o’clock.

“As soon as the firemen could get into the building there was a demand for bags to place the charred bodies and bones in. Owing to the fact that but few ladders were available the task of carrying the bodies to the ground was slow. Later in the day a detachment of Troop C, State Constabulary, arrived from Wissinoming, and the crowd which impeded the work was pushed back from the ruins, larger ladders secured, and the work was facilitated.

School Building a Morgue.

“The public school building on Washington Street was turned into a morgue….

The Burgess stated that the borough has no ordinances covering building inspection. He said that the State building law applies to the town. “Several years ago,” he stated, ‘a State Inspector visited the Opera House and looked it over. He ordered that fire escaped be erected on both sides of the building. This was done, and the Inspector then said that the building was satisfactory.’….” (New York Times. “167 Bodies Found in Theatre Ruins.” January 15, 1908.)

DCPR: “At the coroner’s hearing, Deputy Factory Inspector Harry Bechtel of Pottstown testified that the building’s owner, Dr. Thomas J.B. Rhoads, installed fire escapes only reluctantly and after much prodding. The fire escapes were located outside windows, but at floor height, so that people would have to climb over a three-foot-high sill to leave the building.” (DCPR, 2005)

Devlin: Dozens of townspeople had roles as cast members in the debut of the play “The Scottish Reformation.” (WFMZ-TV News, The Rhoads Opera House Fire.”) The play “featured Harriet E. Monroe, an internationally acclaimed dramatist…” (Devlin, “The Joy and the Agony,” 2008)

“A sellout crowd of about 312 squeezed into a second-floor hall in the building, a three-story structure that dominates the corner of East Philadelphia Avenue and South Washington Street.” (Devlin, “The Joy and the Agony,” Reading Eagle (PA), January 13, 2008)

“The sequence of events has never been fully explained, but most historians agree that about 9:30 p.m. someone on stage kicked over a kerosene lamp and ignited a fire. The hall did not have electricity, so stage lights were fed by a 5-gallon barrel of kerosene at the foot of the stage.
Attempting to stop the spread of the fire, some men tried to move the barrel. It ruptured, spewing kerosene on the floor and fueling the fire….

“…firefighters pulled 169 bodies from the ruins — two-thirds were women and children. A firefighter also died fighting the inferno that turned the night sky red, pushing the death toll to 170…..

“… virtually every family in the town of 2,500 was affected by the tragedy.”

“Based on initial reports, a coroner’s jury indicted Harriet Monroe, claiming that oxygen tanks on a primitive slide projector ruptured and caused the fire. The device, called a stereopticon, projected photographs of Scotland and Germany onto a screen between acts of the play. Monroe, who fiercely denied the allegations, argued the tanks were found in the rubble and had not ruptured… Monroe, hired U.S. Rep. Champ Clark to answer the charges…. no one was criminally prosecuted for the opera house fire….

On January 18, “more than 100 people” were buried that day in Boyertown. (Devlin, “100th Anniversary…,” 2008) (Devlin, “The Joy and the Agony,” 1-13-2008.)

Insurance Engineering: “The fire at Boyertown, Pa…was another such fire as regards loss of life as occurred in the Iroquois Theater, Chicago… More than 175 persons, mostly adults, lost their lives, and a larger number were reported injured. A hissing noise, said to have been caused by a calcium light machine, startled the audience and the fire that occurred immediately after is said to have been caused by upsetting the oil-burning footlight arrangement. The opera house occupied the second story of a fairly large 3-story brick building that was used for stores in the ground story and for lodge rooms in the top story. There was one stairway in the front and a small one at the rear, with ordinary lire escapes on three sides. speaking of the cause of the fire, a report said:

There was absolutely no panic up to this time and nothing probably would have happened if one or more of the performers behind the curtain had not been curious to learn what was causing the noise. Who he, or they were, probably will never be known. Hearing the hissing and the slight commotion in the audience one of the performers raised the curtain from the floor. In front of the curtain and serving as footlights was a tin tank perhaps 8 feet long, 3 inches wide and 3 inches high. It contained coal oil and about 10 lights. In raising the curtain the performer accidentally turned this tank over and it fell to the floor within a few inches of those persons in the front row.

Rev. Adam A. Weber, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, for the benefit of whose Sunday School the entertainment was being given, tried to pick up the tank with the assistance of others, but before they could do so the oil flowed out and caught fire.

The victims were found piled four and five deep near the main stair, and jammed together near the windows leading to the fire escapes. Probably less than one-half the audience, which numbered about 400 persons, got out alive. It was also said that some of the doors were bolted to facilitate the collecting of tickets and were left in that condition after the performance began.”

(Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No. 2, Feb 1908, pp. 151 & 153.)

WFMZ-TV News: “The entire opera house was engulfed in minutes. Many of the victims couldn’t escape the flames because the fire exits weren’t clearly marked. Also, the doors of the opera house opened inward, so panicked patrons sealed their own fate when they crowded together in front of them….

“The fire wiped out about 10 percent of the town…”

“…the fire that killed 170 people…sparked changes in fire safety standards that still stand today. (WFMZ-TV News, The Rhoads Opera House Fire.”)

Wikipedia: “January 13, 1908: A local church, St. John’s Lutheran, has sponsored a stage play at the Rhoads Opera House, in Boyertown, Berks County, PA….

“The stage and auditorium were located on the 2nd floor and all auxiliary exits were either unmarked or locked. One fire escape was available but unable to be accessed through a locked window above a 3 foot sill. 171 people perished when the exit was crowded against to escape the fire. Entire families were wiped out….

“The incident spurred the Pennsylvania legislature into passing new legislative standards for doors, landings, lighting, curtains, fire extinguishers, aisles, marked exits, and doors. All doors were required to open outward and remain unlocked. Pennsylvania governor Edwin Stuart signed Pennsylvania’s first fire law on May 3, 1909.” (Wikipedia)

Sources

Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. EM DAT Database. Louvain, Belgium: Universite Catholique do Louvain. Accessed at: http://www.emdat.be/

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

Decatur Daily Review, IL. “Theater Death Toll in Past Disasters Shows Heavy Totals,” 1-30- 1922, p.1. At: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=1245857

Devlin, Ron. “100th Anniversary of the Rhoads Opera House Fire in Boyertown: A Tragedy’s Legacy.” Reading Eagle (PA), January 13. 2008. At: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=75908

Galveston Daily News, TX. “Chronology of the Year,” Jan 1, 1909, p. 12. Accessed at: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/FullPagePdfViewer.aspx?img=42436423

Insurance Engineering. Vol. 15, No’s 1-6, Jan-June 1908. New York: The Insurance Press, 1908. Digitized by Google. Accessed at: http://books.google.com/books?id=AhbOAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:OCLC2161581

Lynch, Michelle. “Victims of 1908 Boyertown opera house fire remembered with wreath laying.” Reading Eagle, PA, 1-12-2020. Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://www.readingeagle.com/news/local/victims-of-1908-boyertown-opera-house-fire-remembered-with-wreath-laying/article_af613d70-3543-11ea-8f98-b35e77ac19c6.html

National Fire Protection Association. Key Dates in Fire History. 1996. Accessed 2010 at: http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=1352&itemID=30955&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fire%20statistics/Key%20dates%20in%20fire%20history&cookie%5Ftest=1

National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

National Fire Sprinkler Association, Inc. F.Y.I. – Fire Sprinkler Facts. Patterson, NY: NFSA, November 1999, 8 pages. Accessed at: http://www.firemarshals.org/data/File/docs/College%20Dorm/Administrators/F1%20-%20FIRE%20SPRINKLER%20FACTS.pdf

New York Times. “167 Bodies Found in Theatre Ruins.” 1-15-1908. Accessed at: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E0CEFDB173EE233A25756C1A9679C946997D6CF

O’Laughlin, Lindsey. “Rhoads Opera House fire victims remembered in Boyertown.” Reading Eagle, 1-16-2017. Accessed 6-1-2020 at: https://www.readingeagle.com/news/rhoads-opera-house-fire-victims-remembered-in-boyertown/article_0323c35e-54cb-522b-ac2e-9b1c46130fca.html

Schneider, Mary Jane. A Town In Tragedy: The Boyertown Opera House Fire, Volume II. Boyertown, PA: MJS Publications. 1992.

The Morning Call, Allentown, PA. “Other Valley-area Mishaps and Disasters Have Taken Lives.” 3-26-1992. At: http://articles.mcall.com/1992-03-26/features/2835266_1_quarry-disaster-explosion

WFMZ-TV 69 News. The Rhoads Opera House Fire: The Legacy of a Tragedy (Documentary film). Documentary website, “History” subsection. At: http://www.wfmz.com/special/operahousefire/history.asp

Wikipedia. “Rhoads Opera House.” 1-12-2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoads_Opera_House