Women Jump From Omaha Building to Escape Flames
On a March afternoon in 1899, a meeting of women in Omaha, Nebraska, turned suddenly into a scene of smoke, flame, and terror.
About twenty members of the Women’s Lodge of Maccabees had gathered on the third floor of the Patterson block at 17th and Douglas Streets. They were attending to lodge business, unaware that a gasoline stove had exploded in a rear room near the elevator shaft. By the time a janitor opened the door and shouted for them to escape, the fire had already spread through the floor.
The stairway, their only obvious path to safety, was swallowed by smoke and flame.
Some managed to force their way down, their hands and faces burned as they fled. Others, trapped at the windows with fire behind them, made the only choice left. Before the horrified crowd below, one woman after another jumped from the third-floor windows and fell forty feet to the pavement.
Seven lay burned and bleeding on the street within moments. Many more were carried away with broken bones, severe burns, and injuries so grave that doctors feared they would not survive. Mrs. Thomas Taylor and Mrs. Anna Schemel died without regaining consciousness.
The fire caused relatively little damage to the building itself, but its human toll was devastating.
Another Horror
OMAHA, Nebraska. March 21, 1899. — Comparatively insignificant in material destruction, but appalling in its harvest of death and suffering was a fire that partially destroyed the Patterson block at 17th and Douglass Streets, this afternoon. Two of its victims have already passed away, three more are not expected to live and about 25 others are suffering from broken limbs and burned flesh.
The killed are:
- Mrs. Thomas Taylor.
- Mrs. Anna Schemel.
The injured include:
- Mrs. C.F. Brosius, face and hands burned.
- Mrs. A. King, face badly burned.
- Mrs. A. Samuelson, face and hands severely burned, both wrists broken.
- May Samuelson, 5 years old, burned on hands and face.
- Mrs. G.D. Wilson, face, hands and shoulders burned.
- Mrs. J.C. Holt, face and hands burned.
- Marguerite Holt, hands burned, injured internally, may die.
- Mrs. Mary Hopkins, Mrs. Mary Sullivan, and Mrs. W.A. Reed, hands and face severely burned.
- Mrs. Edward Schriner, face, body, and hands burned, bad cut on head, will probably die.
- Mrs. Fresh, face and hands burned.
- Mrs. A.S. Smith, face and hands badly burned, injuries fatal.
- Mrs. C.E. Allen, face and hands badly burned, cut by glass.
- Mrs. Thomas Thornton, face and hands burned severely.
- Walter Scott, hands and face severely burned.
- Unknown man, badly burned on hands and face.
- Steve Williams, 5 years old, face and hands burned.
- Fireman Wm. Guider, suffocated and fell from ladder, will probably die.
- Lieut. Ames Adams, injured by falling down stairs.
The blaze started shortly after 3 o’clock. A group of women, busy with the affairs of the secret orders with which they affiliated were in a moment brought face to face with death.
Sixty seconds later, seven of them lay burned and bleeding on the pavement to which they had dropped 40 feet below, and the others were rescued after they had been more or less severely injured in their desperate dash down the single flight of stairs that led to safety.
The fire originated from a gasoline stove explosion in a room in the rear of the third floor of the building and next to the elevator shaft. It was not discovered until it had spread to the adjoining apartments and the entire floor was filled with smoke and flame.
About 20 members of the WOmen’s Lodge of MacCabee’s were attending a committee meeting in front of the waiting room on the same floor. They were unconscious of danger until a janitor threw open the door and told them to get out before the flames cut them off.
The warning came too late. The fire swept through the door and down the single stairway. Those nearest the door fled through the blinding smoke and reached the street with hands and faces burned and blistered. The rest faced a solid wall of flame.
There was a fire escape at the south front of the building, but none of them thought of it. They rushed panic stricken to the windows, through which the smoke was already pouring.The fire, scarcely a foot behind them, caught their clothing and scorched their faces.
In another instant the spectators, attracted by the clouds of smoke, were horrified to see one after another spring from the open windows and fall heavily to the pavement. Not one arose. They were quickly carried into the office of a physician across the street. Most of them were bleeding from severe cuts and bruises and all were burned until their skin hung in shreds.
As fast as dressings could be applied, the victims were taken to the Clarkson hospital. Mrs. Taylor and Mrs. Schemel died without recovering consciousness.
Source: Daily Kennebec Journal. Augusta, Me. March 22, 1899.
