Those Leading to the Canonsburg Opera House Were Only Six and a Half Feet Wide.
TWENTY-SIX WERE KILLED
Panic-Stricken Crowd Crashed into Throng Waiting to Enter and Clogged Narrow Passageway.
CANONSBURG, Penn., Aug. 27. – The panic in a moving picture show in the Canonsburg Opera House last night cost the lives of twenty-six persons. Twenty-five members of the audience were seriously injured, and thirty persons suffered minor hurts.
According to survivors of the catastrophe, the panic started when at 8:15 o’clock the moving picture machine developed a defect. There was a sharp report from the machine, followed by a dense cloud of smoke as the electric fuse burned out. A small boy shouted “Fire!” at the same time starting for the narrow exit to the stairs. Bolus Dubrowski, a polish miner and a giant in size, jumped from his seat and ran for the same door. In a moment there was a fighting throng from the audience on his heels. At the head of the narrow stairway which lead to the street the miner tripped. As he rolled down the steps he swept others from their feet, who were waiting their turn to enter the theatre, and soon there was a pile of persons at the foot of the stairs fighting like madmen to get out. Here is a revised list of the dead:
BABY of Mrs. Kelly, about 4 years.
BYRD, FRANCIS, (colored,) 18 years.
CAMPBELL, Mrs. MARY ANN LAIRD, 45 years.
COLE, GEORGE OWEN, 42 years.
DUBROSKI, BOLUS, a miner.
FISHER, LULU, 28 years, of Glen Campbell.
GIBBS, ELIZABETH, 6 years.
GEDITSCH, ELIZABETH, 6 years.
GREEN, ELIZABETH, 4 years.
HILL, MURRAY, 13 years.
KAY, GEORGE, 13 years.
KELLY, Mrs. BLANCHE E.
LAIRD, ANNIE, 8 years, daughter of Mrs. Campbell.
LANE, CARL, 21/2 years.
LANE MARGRET, 4 months.
MARCHALL, Mrs. Fred, 35 years.
MASTIC, PAUL, 10 years.
McPEAKE, ARTHUR, 20 years.
MILLER, Mrs. CHARLES, of McKeesport, Penn.
NEISH, WALTER, 14 years.
NUGY, LUDWIG, 23 years
RICHARDS, STELLA, 18 years.
RITTIGER, SYDNEY, 30 years, lived in Youngstown, Ohio.
ROBINSON, MARIE ELLA, 17 years.
SHANER HAROLD, 13 years.
YOUNG, Mrs. CALLIS, 29 years.
The fight on the stairs lasted half an hour. Volunteer firemen, several policemen, and a few level headed citizens fought hard to untangle the mass of men, women, and children at the foot of the stairs. Those unhurt and those slightly injured were pulled from the top of the pile. As they gained the street, the rescued ones ran screaming like maniacs to all parts of the small town. Next came the more seriously hurt, and those were sent home or taken to nearby houses, while a few were sent unconscious to hospitals. Then the rescuers came to the silent forms of those who had reached the fatal stairway first. One after another, the victims, many of them women and small children, were carried to the sidewalk. All had been suffocated, and their faces wore expressions of terror.
Of the twenty-six dead, thirteen were children, seven of them pupils in the public schools. To-day it was decided by the school authorities to postpone for a week the opening of the schools. Arthur McPeake, who is among the dead, was passing the building when the bodies began to pile up at the door. The young man to the rescue, and was in the act of dragging a body from the pile when a man came hurtling down the stairs. He struck McPeake on the back, and the young man’s neck was broken.
Sydney Rittinger was at the performance with his fiancée, Miss Lulu Fisher. Before entering the building they had stopped at the jewelry store nearby and Rittinger had bought the ring that was to have been used at their wedding. Both were killed. Wilmer Lane, an employee of the Canonsburg Pottery and a member of one of the volunteer fire companies, hastened to answer the alarm, at was working at the pile of bodies at the entrance to the opera house when he came upon the lifeless forms of his children, lying beside his unconscious wife.
Samuel Lane of Morganza, not knowing that his son’s family were at the theatre, had entered the building a short time before the alarm was given. He ran toward the stairs and was making his way down when he saw a child almost under his feet. As he stooped to pick her up, he recognized his granddaughter, but at that moment he was caught up in the mighty whirl and she was swept out of his reach and killed. He was seriously hurt.
Among the most seriously injured is Mrs. Minnie lemon of Lawrenceville, Ill., who was visiting friends at Houston , near here. Mrs. lemon was a spectator at the show, and was caught in the crush. To-night physicians believe that her mind is affected on account of her harrowing experience. Mrs lemon is at the Canonsburg hospital, and cries continually to be saved.
It is reported tonight that there were several baby carriages at the bottom of the stairway. It is said that these seriously handicapped the audience in the rush for the street, Coroner Heffran has announced that this allegation will be thoroughly investigated.
Manager Ferguson of the theatre endeavored to stop the panic. Accompanied by his wife, he started for the stairs when the first alarm was given, but seeing there was no escape there, made his way to the stage. Calling loudly to the audience to follow him, he led the way to the rear of the stage, and 300 persons escaped in this way.
Coroner James T. Heffran has begun a rigid investigation. He arrived at the opera house early to-day, and within a short time had selected a jury. He was shown through the opera house by manager C.F. Ferguson and John C. Morgan, owner of the building. He will hold an inquest there next Thursday or Friday. Coroner Heffran will summon the Pennsylvania department of factory and building inspection to ascertain whether the laws of the state have been followed. Measurements taken by members of the jury showed the stairway leading to the second floor of the building, the main floor of the opera house, to be only 6 ½ feet wide, while the doorway at the bottom was more than 8 feet high.
Services were held at all the churches here to-day, but the attendance was not large. In all mention was made of the disaster. This prayer was repeated by the congregations:
O merciful God and Heavenly Father, Who has taught us in Thy Holy Word that Thou Dost not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men, look with pity, we beseech Thee, on the sorrows of this people. In Thy wisdom, Thou hast seen fit to visit us with trouble and bring distress upon us. Make us deeply sensible and of the shortness and the uncertainty of human life. Teach us to number our days that among the changes of this world our hearts may surly there be fixed where true joy is to be found through Christ our Lord.
The community is stunned by the disaster. The police and firemen had the dead removed to two improvised morgues in the night, and there the identification of the bodies was completed to-day. One by one the bodies were taken to their homes. Visitors came from the surrounding country in throngs, and morbid crowds followed the bodies from the morgues to their homes.