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| Tribune illustration of the fire on Archer at 22nd Street February 6, 1902 |
Chicago was reeling
on this day, February 6, in 1902 as a result of a gas explosion at the Trostel
Meat Market at the intersection of Archer Avenue and Twenty-Second Street, a
disaster that claimed eleven victims. The
three-story Trostel building, where the explosion originated, and the home next
door collapsed and were totally involved in flames by the time the first fire
companies arrived. Two more structures
on Twenty-Second Street were ablaze before the fire could be contained.
Underground
explosions that blew manhole covers from the streets as flames leaped high from
the sewers below complicated the efforts at the chaotic scene. The Tribune reported,
One
of the narrowest escapes from death was that of Timothy Moynihan, engineer of
engine company No. 2. The engine
responded to the fire at the first alarm, and as the heavy apparatus approached
the fire the manholes began to blow up.
The horses had just cleared a manhole in front of 2218 Archer avenue,
and the engine was directly over the cap, when the gas in the main
exploded. The engine was raised several
inches from the ground, and the flash of fire that followed enveloped Moynihan,
while at the same instant he was thrown into the street.
Moynihan, stunned,
managed to pick himself up, chase after the engine, and, despite, his burned
hands, help to put the engine into service before he was taken away to have his
injuries treated. [Chicago Tribune, February 6, 1902]
An Ashland Avenue
streetcar was also traveling in front of the Trostel building when the explosion occurred. Every window in the car was
shattered and the glass cut many of the passengers aboard the car. Both the conductor and motorman were thrown
from the streetcar and injured. Another streetcar
with over 75 passengers on board was derailed by the force of the explosion
even though it was a half-block away.
“It was the
greatest shock that I ever experienced,” said Conductor Collins of the Ashland
Avenue car. “Everything happened in an
instant, and I was unable to tell whether the explosion occurred in the middle
of the track directly under the car or whether a building had fallen on top of
the car.” [Chicago Tribune, February 6,
1902]
John MacLeod, who
ran the saloon next to the meat market, was behind the bar when the back wall
of his building blew in. “I was thrown
over the bar, and a second later the bar was thrown across the room and upset
the stove. The hot coals immediately fired
the building. I recovered for the minute
and thought of my little boy, Douglas. The last I had seen of him he was playing
near the stove. I called out and the
child answered me. I ran to the boy,
and, catching him in my arms, rushed to the front window. I shoved the boy through the broken pane and
a citizen caught him up.”
The Coroner’s Jury
reached a verdict on February 21, concluding that a leak in a pipe leading into
the Trotsel building from the People’s Gaslight and Coke company’s main caused
the initial explosion. The pipe, called
a Pintsch pipe, compressed gas before it entered a building. The jury also found an oily substance in the
sewers along Archer Avenue and Twenty-Second Streets. The origin of the substance was not
pinpointed, nor was it directly tied to the sequence of events, but the jury strenuously stated, “We demand on behalf of the people
of the section in which the explosion occurred that the city sewer department
without delay proceed to investigate the sewers and catch basins in that
vicinity, especially those on the premises of manufacturing plants, until the
source of this oil is traced and discovered.”
[Chicago Tribune, February 22, 1902]
The jury also
strongly recommended that mechanical ventilators be place in all sewers and
conduits, a plan endorsed by the lead attorney for the People’s Gas and Coke
company, J. F. Meagher. “It is one of
the safest things in the world . . . I want to say right now that the gas
company will be glad to cooperate in placing these ventilators.”
In a period of a
dozen years between 1890 and 1902 172 Chicagoans had been killed in explosions
of various kinds.
Two days after the
explosion that claimed the entire Trotsel family The Tribune observed in an editorial on February 7,
. . . the accident illustrates
the dangers which constantly lie in wait for the dwellers in large cities and
which when least expected are liable to involve serious disaster to property
and fatality to life . . . Nor considering the defects of existing political
systems is it reasonable to expect perfect inspection. Careless inspection is quite as frequent as
careless construction. The public, however,
has the right to expect that these dangers shall be minimized, and some of them
can be entirely removed by frequent and faithful inspection.
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