Collinwood’s Hardest Lesson: The Lake View School Fire

hen the sun broke over the bustling village of Collinwood, Ohio, on Wednesday, W March 4, 1908, the day began like any other day just off the shores of Lake Erie. But the day would end much, much differently. Unbeknownst to the children and teachers at the Lake View School, they were about to become part of a disaster forever etched in time. On this day, 172 students and 3 adults would die in the largest life-loss school fire in U.S. history. Collinwood, located just outside Cleveland, was seeing record growth in the early twentieth century. It was a prime location for booming railroads, which quickly began By Casey C. Grant building depots and terminals in the area. The quick growth also meant the village would be annexed into the city of Cleveland by 1910. To accommodate the growing number of families settling in Collinwood, the town built a second elementary school, the Lake View School, in 1901. In 1906, the citizens passed a bond to pay to enlarge the school, but even with this addition, the school was overcrowded by 1908.

Ash Wednesday at Lake View School

The three-story Lake View School was an imposing building, standing not far from the shore of Lake Erie. The front of the building faced east on Collamer Street in North Collinwood, at the corner of what today is East 152nd Street and Lucknow Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. The school building was of typical school construction for 1908, measuring 66 by 84 feet (20 by 26 meters) on its foot- print. It had brick pier construction using 12-inch (30-centi- meter) exterior walls and four 12-inch (30-centimeter) interior walls rising to the attic. Other construction characteristics included interior ordinary timber and joist construction, lathe and plaster walls and ceilings, floors of 7/8-inch (2-centimeter) tongue and groove boards, and a gable hip slate roof on wood

14 DOORS & HARDWARE £ JULY 2009 sheathing. The building stood by current were used throughout the frames. An exterior fire escape on itself, with no outward exposures. school, with electricity coming the building’s north side provided The three upper floors were used from the Collinwood Municipal additional means of escape, serving as classrooms with several support- Lighting Plant. There were 12 to 15 the lower floors and the third-floor ing teacher rooms. The building circuits on a concealed knob and gymnasium, which was being had a relatively simple layout, with tube arrangement on a tablet board used as a fifth-grade classroom. a classroom on each corner of the in an enclosed cabinet on the second Fire drills were reportedly held first and second floors surrounding floor. The heating system used coal- regularly using the two primary a common open hall. The base- fired boilers that circulated steam stairwells, but not the exterior fire ment housed the service utilities, through insulated pipes to cast iron escape. Although the building including two steam heaters, a fuel radiators, some located throughout did not have a fire alarm system, room, and an ash room, as well as the building and some in the venti- it had bells that could be rung two playrooms. This arrangement lation shafts providing the build- selectively and were used for was designed to provide an efficient ing’s air circulation. manual notification. At least one centralized use of the building heat- The primary exits were two fire drill had been held during ing system. separate, winding stairwells 5 the first two months of 1908. In school buildings such as this, feet (1.5 meters) wide on the east there were not many candidate heat and west sides that discharged on Nowhere to Run sources. Aside from the possibility the ground floor through doors of an intentionally set fire, the two that led to the front and rear main At the start of the 1907-1908 primary utilities in the building doors. The main doors were each school year, Lake View School had were the electric lights and the heat- partly restricted by their own 350 students, more than it could ing system. Approximately 40 lights foyers, which contained partitions comfortably handle, occupying nine powered by a 110-volt alternating to support the doors and door classrooms. Because the day of the

JULY 2009 £ DOORS & HARDWARE 15 fire was Ash Wednesday, however, When the classroom doors opened prevented further escape. second- Marshall Best the number of absentees might have into common areas rapidly fill- floor teacher Katherine Gollmar been slightly higher than usual. ing with smoke, however, they estimated two and a half minutes. Security Corporation ® Classes at the Lake View School realized it was not. Though the At the coroner’s inquest, school started at 8:45 each morning. As students quickly proceeded with Principal Anna Moran provided children arrived for school the their orderly evacuation, the fire vivid testimony of these critical morning of the fire, Fritz Hirter, the kept pace, growing with surprising moments: You Now Have A Trusted Choice for S.F.I.C. school janitor, found three young speed. Dense smoke now billowed “When the bell rang, I, and I girls playing hide-andseek in the into the open halls and spread up suppose other teachers, thought it A Family History of Innovative Security Products, closet below the front stairs some- the stairs from the basement and was a regular fire drill. Every child time after 8:00 a.m. He sent them first floor. in the school has gone out over and beginning with the small format interchangeable core away and later recalled that he’d On the first floor, teacher Ethel over again from the second floor noticed nothing unusual about the Rose had led nearly all of her to the open air in one minute and IC CORES encounter. All was normal as the kindergartners from their classroom thirty seconds. You can judge from students and teachers reported to in the southeast corner and out the that how quickly we reached the their assigned classes. front door before it was blocked by first floor. When we neared the front MORTISE LOCKS Around 9:30 a.m., fifth-grader the heat and smoke. On the third door, we saw the flames coming up RS Series Emma Neibert left her third-floor floor, teacher Laura Bodey guided the basement stairs, and without classroom to use the basement more than three dozen fifth graders knowing it, we led those little chil- washroom and noticed smoke. She through a window onto the exterior dren into the very face of the fire. alerted Hirter, and according to fire escape, which had not been “It is not true that the doors subsequent testimony, he went to used in earlier fire drills. Almost all opened toward the inside, and they Ruby Irwin’s first-floor classroom of her students escaped safely. were not locked. The trouble was of first graders and rang the school As the rapidly growing heat and that only one of the double outer bell. He then went to the east and choking smoke quickly made the doors was open. The other was west stairs and opened the doors at front door and stairs impassible, fastened with a spring at the top. both exits. the students’ orderly march started Before the janitor got it open, the Later, investigators would to disintegrate, and they rushed children had wedged themselves CYLINDRICAL determine that the fire started toward the rear stairway exit. The into the vestibule, and the others in ANSI Grade 1 & 2 somewhere near the closet below younger students leaving their a panic stumbled and climbed and the front stairs in which various first-floor classrooms were joined by crowded over them. It was frightful, supplies, including tools, wood, older students coming down from so near safety. and lime for whitewashing the the second floor, and they quickly “If I could have turned my line walls, were stored. The closet had overwhelmed the rear stairwell back, they would have had a chance no electricity, but there were steam exit’s capacity, crushing forward on the third floor, but they kept Celebrating our 5th Year in Business! pipes running through it. The into the partitioned doorway that coming down, and we could not investigators could not determine served the rear exit on ground stop them. Men from the outside the official cause of the fire, but they level. As the younger students fell were trying to pull the children out, Complete Line of ANSI Grade 1 and Grade 2 commercial locks available in S.F.I.C., theorized that it was the result of within sight of safety, the older but they were crushed so tightly Large Format and Non-IC with very competitive pricing. contact between the main steam line students behind them, now sens- together that no human strength and wood joists in an area partially ing the genuine danger of the fire, could clear a passageway. Dozens of 17 Standard and 6 Premium Keyways - Compatible with Best® and Falcon®. concealed behind the closet. pushed forward and climbed over them died within a foot of absolute As the bells rang to evacuate their schoolmates, leading to an safety.” the school, the students lined up even greater tangled mass of bodies. Committed to the Distributor in each classroom to file out much Later, during the coroner’s inquest, Fire at the School! as they had been trained to do in teacher Ethel Rose estimated that previous fire drills. Many initially three minutes elapsed from noti- Word of the fire spread quickly, thought it was yet another drill. fication until the massive pile-up and residents closest to the school ® Marshall Best Security Corporation 317-806-1180 www.marshallbestsecurity.com 16 DOORS & HARDWARE £ JULY 2009 [email protected] 13097 Parkside Drive, Suite B • Fishers, Indiana 46038 • Fax 317-578-2094 were the first on the scene. Some of with their equipment, the school of Cleveland in charge of Captain them, including parents of trapped was fully ablaze and the victims Mulcahy. The other streams were children, managed to pull a few beyond rescue. Compounding the in charge of Superintendent Frany children from the massive pile-up firefighters’ limited resources and of the Lake Shore. The streams at the rear entrance of the school. lack of rapid deployment was some in the front and on the north and As testament to their frantic rescue question about the adequacy of the south side were in charge of the efforts, one of the residents, John water supply, although whether this assistant chief of the Collinwood Krajnyak, would himself become had any bearing on saving those Fire Department, which consisted of a victim of the fire. With teachers trapped isn’t clear. a gasoline fire engine, hose wagon, Grace Fiske and Katherine Weiler, At 10:16 a.m., the nearby city and a few short ladders.” he was one of only three adults to of Cleveland received an urgent At the time of the fire, Collinwood the in the inferno. request for assistance, and a still Mayor Westropp and Chief George Among the large crowd that alarm dispatched Engine 30 (a Hammell of the Collinwood Fire quickly formed at the school were 1904 American Steamer), an 1895 Department were both away in railroad workers from the nearby ladder truck, and a hose cart from Cleveland on business. Battalion Lake Shore and Michigan Southern the station at East 105th and St. Chief Fallon consulted with the rail yards who forced their way Clair Streets. An automobile with assistant chief of the Collinwood through the front door but were a life net on its roof also responded Fire Department, and based on their unable to rescue anyone due to the from Cleveland Fire Department joint agreement, Fallon took charge intense flames. Also in the crowd headquarters. These units were of the rescue and recovery opera- were a large number of horrified commanded by Battalion Chief tion. By this time, the fire was virtu- parents. One of these was the school Michael Fallon, who arrived at the ally extinguished, and he ordered janitor, Fritz Hirter, who was seri- school at about 10:50 a.m. from the the withdrawal of all the hose ously burned around his head fight- quarters of Engine 14. streams except those in the rear of ing to save the trapped children, He described the following scene the building, which were cooling including three of his own who on his arrival: the last remaining embers and “… perished before his eyes. “The building was doomed, noth- washing the debris from the dead The 20-member Collinwood ing remained but the four walls. bodies of the little ones who were volunteer fire department consisted The fire was practically out, with burned to death.” of one horse-drawn gaspowered the exception of some wooden The scene confronting the fire- pumper, one hose wagon, and a partitions that were burning in fighters was horrific. As Chief Fallon small ladder truck. At the time the basement and the ruins burn- describes it: of the fire, the department’s only ing here and there. There were “Under my supervision, the men team of horses was dragging a five streams of water playing on worked with shovels for about road scraper over a dirt road more the fire. One stream in front, one one hour but found this method than a mile away. This delayed on the north side of the building, very slow and rather difficult, as firefighters significantly, and by and two streams in the rear, one of up to this time we had got about the time they arrived at the scene which belonged to Engine Co. 30 10 bodies, owing to the entangled

“The building was doomed, nothing remained but the four walls. The fire was practically out, with the exception of some wooden partitions that were burning in the basement and the ruins burning here and there.” —Battalion Chief Michael Fallon

18 DOORS & HARDWARE £ JULY 2009 masses of burned bodies, and as I scene and the temporary morgue. while Mary Sega was also identified wished to extricate the bodies with- Doctors and nurses from the local as Maria Sega.5 This presented a out any mutilating, I then decided area collected at the morgue to challenge for officials tabulat- to float the bodies by putting a assist parents overcome by grief, ing the list of the deceased. To large stream of water under each as mothers and fathers and other this day, the precise spelling of of them, therefore creating pres- responsible relatives were brought some of the names is not clear. sure which proved satisfactory. through the police lines into the Many funeral processions were The bodies floated around like beef morgue in groups of 10. Among held on Friday, March 6, and others in a vat, after this our work was the groups providing assistance the following week. The 19 uniden- easy. We were hampered some on was the Cleveland Young Women’s tified children, along with teachers account of the parents of the dead Christian Association, which sent Grace Fiske and Katherine Weiler, children who were clamoring to 100 volunteers to help the affected were buried at Lake View Cemetery get a glimpse of these little darlings families with funeral arrangements. on Monday, March 9. as they were taken from the ruins The final tally of casualties from of the building to stretchers to the Lake View School fire was 172 The Coroner’s Report ambulances.” children and 3 adults. Through The Collinwood Police under the an arduous identification process, Not surprisingly, the public command of Chief Charles Mcllrath sometimes aided only by a scrap outcry for answers to this tragedy established fire lines to keep back of clothing, 153 children were was intense. An investigation the surging crowds, and the work identified and sent home for their was launched, led by the local continued. Another 159 bodies were funeral arrangements. However, coroner because he was the only sent to a temporary morgue at the 19 of the little ones were beyond public authority that could compel railroad’s Lake Shore Store House. identification. testimony. Coroner Burke, who By the time Chief Fallon was finish- Many of the families that lost was in charge of the investigation, ing the final search of the building, children had recently immigrated was joined by Deputy State Fire Mayor Westropp had returned to to the United States, and it was Marshals Harry Brockman and Collinwood. After turning the scene not uncommon for some of them Nathan Flegenbaum, Cleveland over to the mayor and his staff, the to have multiple spellings or Fire Chief Wallace, City Building Cleveland Fire Department personnel pronunciations of their first and last Inspector S.S. Loughee, and picked up their hose lines and gear, names based on “Americanized” members of the Collinwood Board and returned to quarters at 5:55 p.m. spellings of foreign names. For of Education, among others. example, Lucy Fingleman was In addition to determining that Wreckage of the Human Kind also identified as Lucy Zingleman, the fire began in the basement

By early afternoon, the recovery of the remains proceeded in earnest, and by 4:00 p.m., 165 bodies had been brought to the Lake Shore House. All available ambulances on the east side of Cleveland were pressed into service, and they served in a recycling stream, trans- porting bodies first to the temporary morgue and then, once they had been identified, from the morgue to the homes of grieving families.

Crowd control was a problem Collinwood Elementary School, built after the prior building burned down with massive loss for the police at both the disaster of life. The "new" school gave every classroom direct access to the ground.

JULY 2009 £ DOORS & HARDWARE 19 in a closet under the front stairs, ring. At the 13th Annual NFPA needs to be done? Half a century investigators sought to answer an Meeting in 1909, then-President after the Lake View School fire, that equally important question: Why C.M. Goddard gave a challeng- question was painfully answered were so many people trapped? At ing address highlighting how when a fire broke out on December that time, there were no nationally Americans were the most care- 1,1958, at the Our Lady of the recognized criteria for the sizing less, indifferent, and unashamed Angels parochial school in Chicago, and design of exits, and thus no people on Earth, ready to forget the Illinois. This fire had tragic similari- convenient baseline against which spasms of horror soon after they ties to the Lake View School fire: It, to measure the efficiency and effec- occurred. In his remarks, he notes too, started under a stairway and tiveness of a school egress system. that “we have done valuable work trapped many on the upper floors. Measuring the Lake View School in formulating standards, but this When it was over, 92 students and 3 today against such documents is not enough. We must secure the teachers were dead. as NFPA101®, Life Safety Code®, adoptions of these standards. We The Collinwood fire significantly leads us to question whether the must begin a campaign of education raised public awareness of the need exits complied with fundamental of the public.” for school fire safety, and the fire principles, including the remote- The fire at the Lake View School at Our Lady of the Angels 50 years ness of the two primary paths of was an international news story, and later slammed home the reality egress, egress capacity, and the a higher level of scrutiny of school that action was needed. The fire at use or lack of certain exit compo- systems everywhere resulted, with Our Lady of the Angles resulted in nents such as panic hardware. an increase in fire drills and a reas- sweeping safety improvements, and Following the fire, claims that sessment of school building design. the statistics speak for themselves. the school doors swung inward Arguably, one of the single greatest In the five decades since that fire, became rooted in the local folklore, advances in modern fire protection there has not been another school but testimony from the inquiry is the establishment of the Life fire in the United States in which 10 disputes this detail. However, Safety Code, first published in 1912 or more people have died. it is not surprising that the rear as Exit Drills in Factories, Schools, Between 1994 and 1998, grades K exit became overwhelmed since Department Stores and Theaters. through 12 averaged one civilian the 5-foot-wide (1.5-meter-wide) Although NFPA 101’s genesis is death per year, which has been a stairwells were further restricted rooted directly in the Triangle typical annual death toll for schools in the foyer before the final exit Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, the since at least 1980. Moreover, these discharge. The Coroner’s report need to respond to other disasters fatalities do not appear to be inno- concludes that, as a result of “the such as the Lake View School fire cent children, but juvenile firesetters failure of the children to complete also had a strong influence, as caught in the fires they set or adults their exit in good order and the reflected in the original title. such as janitors. It is a bittersweet faulty construction of the inner In addition, other publications legacy that, after 100 years, we have partition at the rear door, the chil- appeared promoting a higher indeed made progress in improving dren became jammed and congested level of safety for schools. Perhaps school fire safety, and the innocent on the rear steps and thus unable most notable was a lengthy article victims of Collinwood, Ohio, did to escape from the building.”6 published in the July 1919 edition not die in vain. of the NFPA Quarterly by H. Walter Never Again? Forster, entitled “Fire Protection for Schools.” A reprint of this article The Collinwood school fire was was approved by the U.S. Bureau of Reprinted with permission from NFPA Journal® one in a string of tragic, large Education and widely distributed (Vol. 102, #5) Copyright 2008, National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA. All rights life-loss disasters at that time that to school authorities throughout the reserved. slowly eroded the apathy of the United States. NFPA Journal® is a registered trademark of the public, leading to initiatives to keep When, if ever, will the next Lake National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, disasters of this type from recur- View School fire occur? What still MA 02169.

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