1943 Victory Theater Fire Ignites Salt Lake City Firestorm

1943 Victory Theater Fire Ignites Salt Lake City Firestorm

By STEVE LUTZ

Disasters of all sorts change people, communities, and nations. In recent memory, the date of 9/11/2001 has changed America forever, but smaller disasters have had their own long- and short-term effects. This is the story of one of them. The 1943 Victory Theater fire in Salt Lake City killed three firefighters and set off a chain reaction that changed the lives of many people. The fire vastly changed the Salt Lake City Fire Department and significantly affected the city government and the attitudes of citizens towards it. No other incident in the history of the Salt Lake City Fire Department caused as much upheaval and discontent as the Victory Theater fire. No other structural fire incident in Utah resulted in more firefighter deaths. No other firefighter fatality incident received more public interest or press attention or became such a hot political topic in Salt Lake City Hall.1 The sheer number of news articles on the Victory Theater fire, the publicity generated, and its aftermath indicate the disaster was among the most significant events in Salt Lake City history.

Utah’s capital city has been spared the type of conflagrations that have ravaged huge swathes of other major cities with narrow streets such as Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Reasons may include Brigham Young’s design of wide streets that also act as effective firebreaks. A good water system, relatively new buildings, fire and building codes that have evolved over time and a proficient fire department are also likely to have been important factors in preventing or limiting large Salt Lake City fires.2 But none of those factors stopped the disaster on the day the Victory Theater burned.

Salt Lake Cityʼs 300 South between State and Main Streets after the Victory Theater Fire on May 19, 1943.

SHIPLER COLLECTION, UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Located at 48 East 300 South, the Victory Theater was originally known as the Colonial Theater. It then became the Pantages, changed to the Casino, then Loew’s State Theater before being finally called the Victory Theater in 1924. The famed theater was the venue for stage shows and plays for several years before equipment was installed to show silent films. Twenty-five years to the day, before fire fighter Harry Christenson was laid to rest,after dying in the tragic theater fire, the theater showed the first “talking picture show” in Utah, which starred Al Jolson in “The Singing Fool.”3

The Victory, built in 1908, was typical for its time when effective building or safety codes were lacking in Salt Lake City. The theater was constructed of ordinary masonry walls and wooden floors. It included upper and lower balconies, a stage with a brick proscenium, and a small basement below the stage. The theater’s auditorium was 130 feet deep by 80 feet wide. To accommodate the showing of motion picture films, a projection booth with a concrete floor containing a great deal of heavy projection and sound equipment was later added to the lower balcony. This extra weight became a major problem during the fire.4 At the north end of the auditorium a thirty-foot deep lower balcony extended over the ground level seating area. A steel I-beam and steel posts supported the front of the balcony but the rear of the balcony and the heavy projection room were only supported by wooden joists set into pockets in the north brick wall that separated the theater from the other occupancies. The main floor seating was supported by a wooden structure resting directly on the ground with a tiny crawl space containing wiring and ductwork.

Patrons entered through a large two-story atrium on the north that opened onto the south side of Third South. The auditorium itself sat behind other businesses that directly fronted Third South. These included Speicher’s Economy Shoes, Hughes Women’s Clothes Store, Reeds Riteway Store, Edwards Women’s Clothes, the St. George Hotel and the Ratskeller Restaurant. There was a narrow alley on the east side between the theater and the Keith O’Brien Company and on the west the theater abutted the Paris Millinery Company. There was a short alley in the rear where fire exits with metal stairs led from the auditorium.5

At the time of the fire, the theater had been closed for two weeks for remodeling.6 On the morning of May 19, 1943, Bert Berch, the first worker on the remodeling crew, showed up just before 8:00 a.m., unlocked the front doors and made his way through the darkened theater to the stage where he unlocked the stage exits so that the rest of the crew could enter. He climbed up to the fly loft, the area into which the curtain and stage backdrops were hoisted, and began his work.

Berch was the first to notice the smell of burning rubber. Although he did not see any smoke or fire from the cockloft, he made his way down to the auditorium floor where he saw several seats burning about sixteen rows from the front of the auditorium. He pulled the alarm box near the stage, grabbed a fire hose line from one of the wet standpipes and tried to extinguish the fire in the seats.

The Salt Lake City Fire Department headquarters station received the alarm at 8:24 a.m.7 The first alarm fire companies to arrive at the theater were Engine 1, Ladder 1, known as Big Dan, Engine 2, and a rescue car. Acting Battalion Chief Don White quickly saw the flames in the seating area and directed workmen to play a stream from a second standpipe line onto the area.8 When the fire was not extinguished immediately, White assumed that something was feeding the flames from below. The first-in crew of Engine 1, under the supervision of Lt. Melvin Hatch, laid both fire hose and air lines to supply the breathing air masks worn by the firefighters into the structure to knock down the fire in the seating area. Ed Phillips and Theron Johnson used the masks as they played a hose stream onto the seating area with Lt. Hatch.9

White sent Lt. Limb and the Ladder 1 crew to the St. George Hotel to check for fire extension and life safety hazards. Seeing no problem in the hotel, they climbed to the roof of the theater and made an attempt to manually open the ventilators, only to discover that they were nailed shut. Although Limb had ordered a hose line be taken to the roof and forcible entry of the vents, nobody carried out these orders.10

Firefighters on Engine 2 hooked up the engine to the hydrant west of the theater and then ran hoses down the alley to the exit on the southeast corner. Then Lt. Abelhausen from Engine 2 had his crew relieve Berch’s workers who were still using their small standpipe hose near that exit. While the Engine 2 crew cooled the seating area with their hose, Abelhausen went with Berch to the basement to try to access the area under the auditorium floor where the fire may have started. From an opening in the air conditioning system, they could see fire but by the time they got a hose line downstairs the conditions in the basement had worsened so that they could not mount an attack.

LaVere Hanson, Salt Lake City Fire Chief, at the time of the Victory Theater Fire.

SALT LAKE CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT

Abelhausen hatched another plan to cut a hole in the auditorium floor and insert a cellar nozzle, a rotating nozzle on a pipe capable of being lowered through a hole into the basement. His crew, however, never accomplished that objective because of deteriorating conditions of smoke and heat developing overhead in the auditorium as he saw a dense layer of smoke mushrooming down from the balcony onto the main floor area and could hear fire roaring, but saw no flames. He then directed hose streams up towards the ceiling and balcony areas to cool down the superheated gasses to keep them from igniting.

Battalion Chief White soon noticed fire beneath the auditorium floor as well as a great deal of smoke, which had developed in the balcony area and was rapidly mushrooming across the ceiling some seventy feet above the auditorium floor. This large amount of smoke indicated that there was more fire elsewhere that could not be seen from the main floor. At 8:35 a.m. White called for a general alarm, summoning the city’s entire fire forces.

Assistant Chief Lloyd Egan received the call on the radio in his car and quickly responded, arriving within a few minutes. Quickly assessing the situation, he assumed command and ordered ventilation by opening doors and windows so that firefighters inside could see and breathe. Water supplies were established from nearby hydrants and more hose lines were also deployed. Egan’s efforts were hampered because several of the arriving companies were undermanned and had no officer in charge or the officers were directly engaged in firefighting operations. No one on the scene could see that fire had spread upwards beneath the seating area towards the foyer and then had traveled up through the hollow decorative columns into the floor of the balcony. Due to rapidly worsening conditions, no crews were sent to the balcony where they might have discovered the fire extension. Lt. Hatch’s crew continued fighting the fire spreading through the seating area where later-arriving crews, some of which advanced farther into the building, joined them. Ed Phillips asked to be relieved. Giving his mask to Harry Christenson, he went outside to help on the pumps. The Engine 4 crew laid lines from the rear to the northwest exit but did not enter the building, staying instead in the doorway and applying a stream of water on the flames inside.

Other crews were sent to the roofs of the neighboring buildings where they were the first to observe fire and smoke pouring from the roof and the inoperable ventilator openings on the theater. By now the fire had spread into the heavy timbers of the cockloft, used to support the heavy curtains and backdrops. Egan ordered crews to force open the ventilators and the upper exit doors on the fire escapes in order to allow heat and flammable gasses to escape.

Fire crews from the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, led by chief mechanic “Big Dan” Cunningham, and a crew from the Utah Ordnance Plant, led by former City Fire Chief Walter Knight, arrived at the scene to assist in the fire fighting effort. Two fire fighting crews from Salt Lake County arrived to cover emergency calls in the rest of the city.

As radiant heat ignited the edge of the roof on the Paris Company building next door, crews quickly attacked that extension of the fire. From their high vantage points, these crews observed the worsening conditions of the theater but could do nothing from their positions except to protect the Keith O’Brien and Paris Company buildings.

Chief LaVere Hanson arrived in the lobby at 8:50 a.m., checked in with Egan and then made a walk quickly around the exterior of the entire structure, a journey of 1,100 feet, to see what was being done and to do a complete assessment of conditions. Just eight minutes later, he arrived back at the lobby as the rear of the balcony collapsed onto the crews working near the foyer.

In the aftermath of the structural collapse, Hatch, Christenson and Johnson were pinned under the rubble and died of burns, crush injuries and smoke inhalation. Lt. William Limb seriously injured his back when he fell from a ladder. Capt. A.R Ward fought his way part of the way out of the collapsed area through ten feet of burning timbers, suffering burns and smoke inhalation in the process. Chief Egan desperately pulled Ward from the building and both were taken to the Police Emergency Hospital which was just two blocks away at 105 South State Street. Egan told reporters that there was no warning of the collapse, “Usually there is some creaking or some signal that a roof or balcony is about to collapse, but this time there was nothing. It just collapsed and came straight down.”11

Ab Jenkins, Salt Lake City Mayor, at the time of the Victory Theater Fire.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Lt. Evan Hansen, firemen George Kilpatrick, F.E. McKinnon, Glen Crowther and Elmer Hansen sustained various non-life threatening injuries. Fireman Luther Stroud was hit in the head by a falling pipe as he attempted to reach his trapped comrades.12

Stroud’s apparently lifeless body was dragged from the wreckage and carried to the street, covered with a sheet and taken to the morgue at the Salt Lake County General Hospital on State Street and Twenty-first South. According to his grandson, Roger Stroud, when his grandmother arrived to identify the body she found her dear departed husband, Luther, sitting up on the gurney wondering just where he was and why he was there. He recovered and lived to be ninety-three years old. 13 He never resumed firefighting duties; instead he was assigned to the alarm division at headquarters.

The tragedy was not without its humorous elements. The Deseret News reported that, “As the flames roared a third of a block into the sky, a bald headed gentleman appeared on the roof of one of the nearby buildings threatened by the fire. He had a small bucketful of water that he calmly poured down the side of the building. The bricks were hot so the water evaporated immediately.” Confident with his own efforts, he reappeared with his bucket and a bunch of rags, which he soaked and placed on top of the wall, thereby maintaining a three-foot cold pack on top of the wall. His building didn’t catch fire.”14 The newspaper didn’t reveal the gentleman’s identity or why he thought his actions would be effective against the raging fire.

The day after the fire the Keith O’Brien Company ran quarter page ads in the Salt Lake Tribune : “A Tribute to the Firemen of Salt Lake City. Unselfish, fearless, daring, without thought for themselves, the firemen battled the flames in the fire catastrophe…”15

Two days after the fire, fifty-year-old firefighter Harry Christensen was honored at his funeral and his casket was carried on the bed of a fire engine to the cemetery. Two more fire fighters’ funerals followed.

The Firemen’s Relief Association successfully raised $1,202.45 for each victim’s family. But even as funerals were still being arranged, someone claiming to represent the Firemen’s Relief Association solicited money, supposedly for the fallen men’s families. Police searched in vain for the perpetrator of the fraud who was never found.16

To understand the full effects of the Victory Theater fire on the city’s fire department and the larger community, it may be useful to understand a number of factors that added difficulties for firefighters who were already engaged in a stressful occupation. The national war effort had created a situation in which truck parts, tires and gasoline, and other equipment were rationed and in short supply. Several city fire stations were fifty-years old or older, having been built during the horse drawn apparatus era of the nineteenth century, and by 1943 these fire stations were in danger of collapsing.

Eleven city firefighters left to serve in the military in 1943 and the pool from which to hire qualified replacements was small. Adequate training was lacking for new recruits and recently promoted officers were short on experience. 17 Wartime added extra duties for firefighters including organizing and training civil defense units and collecting scrap metal from throughout the city while remaining ready to respond to an emergency call at a moment’s notice. The department schedule resulted in an eighty-

four-hour workweek and salaries were considerably less than those paid by war-related industries. For unknown reasons, a number of experienced and dedicated firemen simply quit.18

Morale among the firemen had been declining for some time. One reason was that the city’s Civil Service Commission, which handled all hiring and promotions for city departments, was perceived by the fire and police departments to be hostile because of the delays in hiring or promoting public safety personnel. The city commission could and did overrule the civil service commission on a few occasions but rarely pushed them to act. Although Mayor Ab Jenkins fought with the civil service and the city commissions to raise fire and police pay, he found little support for the proposal.19 Increasingly there seemed to have been a gap between fire department leaders and firefighters over poor communications and a perception of favoritism.20 This problem had been present for years and had caused the former fire chief, Walter Knight, to be replaced in 1940.

Before it became the Victory Theater, the building at 48 East 300 South was Pantageʼs Vaudeville Theater.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

In 1942 the city had the highest dollar fire loss in its history with $828,026.73 in damage, while in 1943 property losses dropped to $355,984, however, the human cost was much higher. Four firemen were killed in two downtown incidents. The city’s annual report simply states, “The Fire Department lost four efficient members.” The Annual Fire Department Report put it another way, “To the memory of their efficiency, courage and comradeship, we pay humble respect.”21

When Harry Christensen, Melvin Hatch and Theron Johnson died in the line of duty at the Victory Theatre, discontent finally boiled over. Within days, the city commission demanded investigations into the Victory Theater fire and the workings of the fire department.

Chief Hanson formed the investigation committee to find the cause of the fire and the factors precipitating the collapse of the balcony. This committee consisted of a police detective, W.E. Eggleston, S.R. Waugh from the National Board of Fire Underwriters and James Carver, a Salt Lake City fire investigator. Despite their efforts and that of Salt Lake City’s Fire Prevention Bureau, no definitive cause of the fire was identified. Rumors swirled in the city concerning possible arson or sabotage but nothing materialized from these speculations. Circumstantial evidence pointed at accidental under-floor electrical short or a plumbing torch as the fire’s origins.

The balcony’s collapse was clear. It was never designed to hold the weight of the projection room and its equipment. Further, the hollow columns provided a perfect pathway for the fire to spread from under the auditorium floor up into the floor of the balcony. The fire burned there undetected in the concealed space while the attack crews concentrated on the lower fire and the fire showing above the balcony until the wooden floor joists burned through, collapsing the balcony. Without a complete understanding of the unique construction features, firefighters and officers had no way of knowing the extreme hazard they faced. If the recently formed city fire prevention bureau knew of the problems with the columns and extra weight on the balcony, there is no record of that information or of it being relayed to fire combat personnel.22

Curiously, there was no suggestion in the newspapers that theater owners were in any way responsible for operating a building that contributed to the disaster nor were there any comments from the owners or theater operators at all.

The tragedy of this fire and a series of other events gathered energy into a storm that broke against the beleaguered leadership of the fire department. James Giles, a print shop owner and the father-in-law of dead firefighter Theron Johnson, decided to launch his own inquiry.23 After talking to some of the firefighters who were at the scene, Giles filed a complaint alleging that Ed Phillips, a sixteen-year veteran of the department, had warned Lt. Hatch that the balcony was in danger of collapsing but Phillips claimed that he was ignored and sent outside to help on the pumps. Giles further charged that the fire department had known for years that the building was defective and presented unusual dangers in the event of a fire. Giles went on to allege that the department was run by a clique of “hard-drinking” officers who were not responsive to other members of the department, adding that a battalion chief’s car was frequently parked at a nearby bar.

Collapsed fire ladder from “Big Dan” truck at the Hotel Newhouse, June 19, 1943.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The allegations included provocative words such as “incompetence” and “recklessness” in regard to command at the fire. These charges prompted the city commission to launch an inquiry while Mayor Ab Jenkins was absent. 24 Mayor Jenkins, whose responsibilities included oversight of the Police and Fire Departments, strongly objected to this process, which he felt usurped his powers and duties. He offered his own plan to bring in fire experts from other states. The city commission rejected his proposal and instead appointed a committee of local prominent citizens to conduct the probe. None of those appointed had any fire expertise. This prompted more objections from the mayor and the fire department. While the Salt Lake Telegram questioned the wisdom of an investigation by nonexperts, the criticism seemed to have no effect on proceedings. The committee changed membership as the probe progressed but never included fire experts.25

Less than a month after the Victory Theater fire, another tragedy struck the city’s fire department. Fireman Paul Hamilton died when the department’s pride and joy, the one-hundred foot American Lafrance ladder truck affectionately known as “Big Dan,” collapsed at a fire on the seventh floor of the “fireproof” Hotel Newhouse on the corner of Fourth South and Main Street.26 This new tragedy added to an already toxic atmosphere that seemed to permeate Salt Lake City politics that often pitted flamboyant Mayor Ab Jenkins against the four other city commissioners on a variety of issues. The political drama that unfolded at the Salt Lake City and County Building was worthy of the stages at any of the city’s theatrical palaces.

Mayor Jenkins was used to getting things done his way. He was a successful building contractor and a phenomenally successful race car owner and driver who had built a superstar image by driving his “Mormon Meteor” Duesenburg race car that set more records on the Bonneville Salt Flats than anyone else in racing history. His endurance, unflagging optimism, and kindness to competitors, both on the racecourse and off earned a reputation that catapulted him into the mayor’s office. Jenkins gave no speeches, kissed no proverbial babies, and expended nothing for advertising, yet he won handily. He approached the job of mayor as he approached racing on the Salt Flats—not against people but against the existing record. When he lost his reelection bid in November following the fire, he told a Time Magazine reporter, "I'm not used to running a race against someone else."27

In response to the appointment of the citizens’ committee, the fire chief and the mayor requested that Jay Stevens, a widely respected authority on the fire service from the National Board of Fire Underwriters in San Francisco, conduct an independent investigation into the fire and the response of the department. Stevens traveled from the west coast several times to conduct eighty-five interviews, examine the fire scene, and to review the fire department’s procedures.28 He went so far as to set a bonfire in the ruins of the theater and pulled the nearby box alarm to determine response time as the details of the original response time had not been recorded and were in dispute. The false alarm was a common practice by fire investigators. The exercise resulted in the assistant fire chief arriving in two minutes with a ladder company a few seconds later. This test of the system was, to say the least, disconcerting for arriving crews who had also been on response to the earlier fatal fire.29

Salt Lake Cityʼs Fire Engine Number 1, Ladder 1, known as “Big Dan,” was one of the first units to arrive at the Victory Theater.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

This was not the first time that Stevens had a role in Salt Lake City affairs. As far back as 1925, when he was the California State Fire Marshal, he testified in a hearing concerning a dispute between the Salt Lake City firemen’s union, Local 81 of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), and Chief William Bywater. “The men have no respect for the authority of their superiors,” Stevens told the hearing officer.30 That inquiry led to mass resignations, the retirement of Chief Bywater, and a strike when the resignations were withdrawn and, in an attempt to destroy the union, the city commission refused to reinstate the men.31 The conflict engendered ill feelings between some firefighters and J.W. Stevens. Assistant Fire Chief Walter Knight succeeded Bywater and served until more department unrest in 1940 led to his resignation and the appointment of LaVere Hanson as chief. This transition also occurred with substantial input from Stevens.32 He blasted the civil service commission and Chief Knight, urging Mayor Jenkins to replace him and hire a chief from Beverly Hills, California, to fix the problems in the department.33

The parallel investigations continued throughout July and into August until final reports came to very different conclusions. The citizens’ committee investigation lambasted the chief on numerous fronts while the Stevens report exonerated him.34

Throughout the summer, Chief Hanson pleaded with the city commission to hire more firemen and two more battalion chiefs to fill the two existing positions. He argued that the positions were needed to provide better command and control at big fires. The commission responded by appointing three new battalion chiefs. The chief himself did not fare so well. Following the investigation by the citizens’ panel and a closed door report to the commission, Hanson was demoted on August 12 despite his passionate plea and refutation of charges against him and one of his Assistant Chiefs, Lloyd Egan.35 Curiously, the committee had not interviewed Hanson or Egan.

The citizens’ committee report drew heavily on what it saw as digressions from standard operating procedures in the fire department’s drill manual based on its interviews of various witnesses. Most of the testimony to the committee was information volunteered behind closed doors by various department members, much of which centered on issues having nothing to do with the fire, but instead expressed mistrust of department leadership. There were no transcriptions made of the committee’s proceedings, so there is no record of the questions asked or the context or details of the responses. A testament to the wide interest in the proceeding was that the final report of the committee was made public and the entire text was printed in the Deseret News over a period of five days. Mayor Ab Jenkins was quotedin the papers and in the minutes of the commission on the day of the demotion, “I have heard of individuals being railroaded and today I saw it.”36

The conclusions of the investigation committee were also strongly disputed by Jay Stevens, who found, following his own investigation, that the tragic fire was handled properly by the officers who could not have known of the collapse potential. He went on to refute a number of the other charges against Hanson and Egan and accused the commission of a “cowardly action,” by not allowing the chiefs to defend themselves. Nevertheless, the decision stood.37

Hanson believed that his ouster was a political blow by the city commission against the mayor. Hanson told the Deseret News, “Mayor Jenkins is doing a fine job and he has contributed more of his own time and money to promoting the welfare of Salt Lake than any other official I know of. In my opinion the whole affair is being thrown at the mayor. The controversy does not worry me, but I am very concerned about him.”38

Despite this brave statement, Hanson was personally devastated by the blame placed on him and what he felt was an unfair process driven by city commission politics. Mayor Jenkins, Hanson’s supervisor, was strong willed and often clashed with his colleagues on the commission.39 Both Jenkins and Stevens clearly felt that politics was at work. Jenkins told the Salt Lake Telegram, “I will continue to clear or convict those firemen and get to the bottom of this thing. Meanwhile it might be well to organize a gossipers league and take in the current crop of rumormongers as charter members.”40

After delivering his report to the commission, Stevens commented that the city was “The whisperingest town I have ever been in, you can hear anything you want about anybody in Salt Lake City. The time has come to investigate the investigators…to determine what interest may have been served by them.”41

The complainant, James Giles, was the campaign manager for commissioner John Matheson, who was the target of numerous jabs by the mayor. Giles insistence that Hanson be punished, probably influenced the move to discipline Hanson and Egan, although Matheson publicly favored making Hanson’s demotion temporary. Internal fire department strife, even before the fire, also contributed significantly to the outcome. An addendum to the citizen’s committee report expressed concern about a “clique of officers” who drank excessively and would not consider input of those outside of the clique.42 Responding to public outcry against the conclusion and results of the investigation, the city commissioners insisted that they were reacting more to the low morale and internal fire department problems than to the specific actions during the Victory Theatre fire. Nevertheless, Mayor Jenkins felt that the chief had been wronged and attempted to promote him to Chief of the Prevention and Arson divisions. The city commission rejected the move, further angering Jenkins. Hanson, in turn, told reporters that he “Feared for the Mayor.”43 Hanson returned to duty as a captain but within a week went on medical leave for a heart condition and then took a medical retirement, ending a career that began in 1926.

Ultimately, even the outspoken Stevens came to agree with the removal of Chief Hanson, stating, “He did a good job on the Victory fire but so far as his other actions as fire chief were concerned, fell down. Hanson betrayed the confidence of Mayor Jenkins. The first year he was fire chief he was fine. Then prosperity apparently went to his head and he couldn’t take it.”44

Assistant Chief Joseph Knowles Piercey, known universally as “J.K.,” was appointed by the city commission to replace Hanson as chief. He immediately set out to rebuild the battered and divided fire department. His orders from the city commissioners included “cleaning up the department.” Piercey joined the department in 1919 at the age of eighteen and worked his way up the ranks.45

The public turmoil overshadowed the private sadness and grief felt by the families and colleagues of the dead. The city commission authorized a total of $16,269.71 and burial expenses be paid to the families of Johnson, Hatch, and Christensen. A firefighter’s life in 1943 was thus determined to be worth $5,423.23.46

Twenty-six-year-old Theron Johnson, born and raised in Huntington, Utah, had been with the department less than a year. He was previously a baker. He joined the fire department at the same time as his brother-in-law Grant Walker. Walker fought the Victory Theater fire and undoubtedly was deeply affected by the disaster. Walker later became chief of the fire department in the 1960s, and after retiring from the city’s fire department, became the Utah State Fire Marshal in the 1970s. As state fire marshal he fought hard for the adoption of statewide uniform fire and building codes. Johnson’s father, like his son, died at age twenty-six, while working for the Utah State Road Commission. Theron Johnson left a widow, Shirley, a son, Dahl, a brother, a sister, and his mother.

Harry Christenson was a World War I veteran and a seasoned firefighter with nineteen years of firefighting experience. He was born in South Dakota on January 24, 1893, into a large family with two brothers and five sisters. He left two sons, a daughter and his widow Zoa.

Born in Payson, Utah, on January 29, 1903, Lieutenant Mel Hatch was a seventeen year veteran firefighter who had enthusiastically taken on the responsibility for all civilian and fire department rescue squads in Salt Lake City. His death left a daughter, a son, and a widow to mourn with his parents and three brothers. The city commission posthumously promoted Mel Hatch to the rank of Captain.47

Hatch’s widow, Maud, strongly disputed the citizens’ report conclusions. She told the city commissioners in a letter: Through constant effort and diligent application of his experience, he (Hatch) won promotion to lieutenant and had been qualified as a captain and would have been made such, had his life not been taken by the fire. He did not get his promotion through a clique. This is not only untrue but it is extremely unfair. These men work and study for advancement. I know, for it was my job to know as the wife of a fireman who lived for his job. The stigma of ‘negligence’ is equally unfair, for it infers that my husband was also negligent. Had there been any physical indications of the collapse I know he would have seen them.

She went on to pass on her husband’s praise of Egan as his role model and Hanson as “the most naturally inclined fireman ever affiliated by the Salt Lake Department.48

Salt Lake City was not alone in experiencing a theater disaster. A year before the Victory fire, the Strand Theater in Brockton, Massachusetts, collapsed during a fire killing thirteen firefighters and injuring twenty more. The deadliest single building fire in United States history was Chicago’s Iroquois Theater fire on December 30, 1903. An arc lamp shorted, igniting a curtain. Flames and smoke spread quickly and in just twenty minutes, 602 of the 2,400 audience members and performance troupe in the building were dead. These and scores of smaller amusement venue disasters spawned a host of fire and building code improvements across the country including adoption of new codes in Salt Lake City just a

few months before the Victory burned. 49 Stevens speculated that if provisions of those later codes had been in effect when the Victory was built and later modified, the structure would have been less likely to burn or collapse.50

Even if the theater had not burned, other issues on the city’s fire department may have festered until city officials were forced to take action. Whether or not Mayor Jenkins would have dealt with internal problems himself or waited for the city commissioners to act as they ultimately did, remains a question that will never be answered. Another question that raises speculation is whether Jenkins would have been reelected if the Victory Theatre controversy had not exacerbated the hostility between him and the city commission. Since 1912 Salt Lake City had not reelected a mayor to consecutive terms, it would appear that an anti-incumbent mood affected voters for a long time, and certainly public bickering contributed to the public’s lack of confidence in the Jenkins administration.51 After his defeat Jenkins continued to resent his fellow commissioners and in 1945 campaigned against his political foes, commissioners John Matheson and Fred Tedesco, on behalf of rival candidates.52

A tribute published in the Salt Lake Tribune to Salt Lake Cityʼs Firemen. The Keith OʼBrien Department Store, located to the east of the Victory Theater, was spared serious damage because of the firefighter ʼs efforts.

The Salt Lake City Fire Department and the community were well served by Fire Chief J.K. Piercey. He took command when the department and its members needed to heal and found his main job to create a safer and more open environment for firefighters while rebuilding a relationship with the city commission. He immediately initiated a new daily training program to increase coordination and cooperation. 53 The commission approved his initial budget requests for more equipment, firemen, officers, and modern fire stations. It took patience, time, money and persistence to bring the entire fire department up to his desired standard. Piercey instituted a new employee evaluation process and he reorganized the department so that three battalion chiefs were on duty at all times to provide supervision in three newly delineated districts in Salt Lake City. This insured that battalion chiefs could maintain a reasonable span of control at emergencies. Department morale improved and so did relations with the commission.54

Piercey served as chief for sixteen years modernizing and improving the fire department: new equipment, training, organization, staffing, and facilities while using his quiet firmness to achieve progress. His tenure as chief, the longest in Salt Lake City history, was unusual in its length and a tribute to his ability to weather the storms that can rock any organization. Following his retirement in 1959, he continued to use his political savvy to win election to the city commission where he oversaw the Water Department and then the Public Safety Division. He died suddenly of a massive heart attack on April 17, 1961, at age sixty, ending his forty-two years of service during a long, eventful chapter in Salt Lake City history.55

Perhaps the editorial in the Deseret News printed the day after his death provides the answer to why Piercey succeeded where Knight, Hanson and Jenkins failed: “[He] was a rugged, plain-spoken man with no great flair for the niceties of public relations. But he had the confidence of his men and of all others who worked closely with him. In the long run, that proved to be the best public relations of all.”56

The Victory Theater fire was a disaster in many ways; a personal tragedy for family and friends of the victims; a professional disaster for LaVere Hanson and Lloyd Egan; a public relations nightmare for Ab Jenkins and overall, a tragic loss to the fire department and the community. But from its ashes the fire department rose to become a better organization and the city and its citizens gained a greater awareness of their city’s problems regarding unsafe buildings, limited fire department resources and internal fire department stress and strife. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that it takes horrific events like the Victory Theater fire to precipitate change and for the public to recognize the vital work that fire fighters render to the community. In retrospect, the blame for the deaths of Lt. Mel Hatch, Harry Christenson, and Theron Johnson cannot be laid exclusively upon any one individual. At the very least, we can learn from the circumstances of those deaths and from other disasters of the past and to prevent tragedy in the future. May we not forget their sacrifice.

NOTES

Steve Lutz is the Assistant Director of the Utah Fire & Rescue Academy at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

1 James Berry, Captain, SLC Fire Department, retired, conversation with author, June 2006

2 Salt Lake City has experienced some disastrous fires in both economic and human terms. A huge downtown fire and explosion in 1883 destroyed most of the block just south of Temple Square housing half a dozen businesses and precipitated the establishment of a paid fire department, replacing the volunteer force that had served the city for thirty years. The 1980 Avalon Apartments fire claimed the lives of twelve Vietnamese refugees making it the worst fatality fire in state history and spurring the strengthening of fire codes in the city again.

3 “The Singing Fool Still Scoring at Victory Theatre,” Salt Lake Telegram, October 8, 1928. Press coverage of fires at the time of the Victory fire, always referred to “firemen”. After women began joining fire departments after World War II, the term firemen was gradually replaced by firefighters, a gender neutral term now widely accepted.

4 “Stevens Clears S.L. Fire Officials,” Salt Lake Telegram, August 17, 1943, 1.

5 George Short, Benjamin Roberts and Owen Reichman, “Report to the Salt Lake City Commission on The Victory Theater Fire” Salt Lake City Corporation, August 11, 1943, reprinted in Deseret News, August 12-17, 1943. The authors of the report were the members of the Citizens Investigation Committee appointed by the CityCommission.

6 “Victory Theatre Slates Reopening,” Salt Lake Telegram, November 11, 1942. It had only been six months since a small fire in a neighboring shop caused another shutdown due to smoke damage.

7 A description of the city alarm system is contained in AnnualReport Of the Salt Lake City Fire Department, 1941, 29. Parts of the original system are preserved for demonstrations at the Utah Museum of Fire Service History in Tooele County.

8 A battalion chief in Salt Lake City at that time had command over all firefighting resources in the city during typical operations. The Chief and Assistant Chief were primarily administrative leaders and rarely responded to emergencies. An organizational chart can be found in the AnnualReport Of the Salt Lake City Fire Department, 1941, 4.

9 Breathing apparatus of that period consisted of a hand-cranked air pump with long hoses attached to facemasks. There were never enough of these apparatus to equip all crews and since firefighters were tethered by the one-hundred foot long hose, they were really only usable by firefighters staying in one place within reach of the hose. Someone needed to constantly crank the machine and this tied up crewmembers that needed to relieve each other on the hand pump.

10 Short, Roberts, and Reichman“Report to the Salt Lake City Commission on The Victory Theater Fire.”

11 “No Warning,” Deseret News, May 19, 1943.

12 Short, Robert, and Reichman, “Report to the Salt Lake City Commission on The Victory Theater Fire.”

13 Roger Stroud, a retired Salt Lake City Fire Department veteran, conversation with author September 6, 2010.

14 “Sidelights on Fire,” Salt Lake Tribune, May 20, 1943.

15 Advertisement, Salt Lake Tribune, May 20, 1943.

16 “Benefit Checks Ready for Firemen’s Kin” Salt Lake Telegram, June 12, 1943.

17 “City Upholds Ouster,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 18, 1943.

18 “Ouster Defended,” Deseret News, November 12, 1943.

19 “Jenkins Renews Pay Fight for Firemen and Policemen,” Salt Lake Tribune, March 2. 1943.

20 “Theater Blaze Brings ‘Politics’ Cry,” Salt Lake Telegram, June 28, 1943.

21 AnnualReport of the Salt Lake City Fire Department, 1941, p.1.

22 “Expert Approves Fire Handling,” Deseret News, August 17, 1943.

23 “Theater Blaze Brings ‘Politics’ Cry,” Salt Lake Telegram, June 28, 1943, 13.

24 The Salt Lake City Commission in place at the time consisted of the mayor and four commissioners. Mayor Ab Jenkins acted as the commissioner over Public Safety while the others oversaw the other administrative divisions, Public Works, Parks, Health etc. See Salt Lake City Commission Minutes, June 15, 1943, Salt Lake City Recorder’s Office,

25 “Do a Thoroughgoing Job,” and “Fire Death Probe Gets New Member,” Salt Lake Telegram, June 16, 1943.

26 “Newhouse Hotel, Two Rooms Destroyed, Fireman Killed,” Salt Lake Tribune, June 12, 1943. The location is now a parking lot.

27 “Salt Lake City: Ab Loses,” Time Magazine, November 15, 1943

28 “City Upholds Ouster,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 18, 1943.

29 “Test Decides Victory Theater Time Factor,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 28, 1945.

30 “Salt Lake Firemen’s Strike of 1925 Part 1,” Backdraft, July 2002.

31 “Salt Lake Firemen’s Strike of 1925 Part 2,” Backdraft, November 2002.

32 “Stevens Urges Outside Fire Expert for S.L.,” Salt Lake Telegram, May 17, 1940.

33 “Keyser Says Mayor Should Ask Discharge,” Deseret News, May 1, 1940.

34 “New Fire Probe Sought,” Deseret News, August 18, 1943.

35 “Hanson, Egan Deny Fire Probe Charges,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 13, 1943.

36 “SL Fire Chief Ousted Following Probe,” Deseret News, August 12, 1943.

37 “City Upholds Ouster,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 18, 1943.

38 “Ousted Head Fears for Mayor,” Deseret News, August 12, 1943.

39 “Jenkins Charges Fire Shakeup Political Move,” Salt Lake Telegram, August 14, 1943.

40 Ibid.

41 “City Upholds Ouster,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 18, 1943.

42 “Jenkins Demands Quick Action on Fire Death Report,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 12, 1943.

43 “SL City Commission Stands Pat on Motion Ousting Chief Hanson,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 18, 1943.

44 “Ouster Defended,” Deseret News, November 12, 1943. Although Stevens held no position with Salt Lake City, his decades of expert consultation with the city on fire matters seem to have given him great credibility in the press and a special relationship with successive city commissions, who periodically sought his expertise. He appears in news reports of fire related activities in the city over many years.

45 “Piercey Heads Department,” and “Important Shoes to Fill,” Deseret News, August 12, 1943.

46 Salt Lake City Commission Minutes, June 16, 1943, Salt Lake City Recorders Office.

47 “Hatch Posthumously Promoted to Captain, Salt Lake Tribune, June 25, 1943.

48 “Widow’s Letter Blasts Report on Fire Deaths,” Salt Lake Telegram, August 11, 1943.

49 “A Tragedy Remembered,” NFPAJournal (National Fire Protection Association) (July/August, 1995);”City Drafting New Fire Prevent Code,” Salt Lake Telegram, December 2, 1942.

50 “Expert Approves Fire Handling,” Deseret News, August 17, 1943.

51 “Salt Lake City: Ab Loses,” Time Magazine, November 15, 1943.

52 “Jenkins Opposes Tedesco and Matheson,” Salt Lake Telegram, August 28, 1945.

53 “Jenkins Charges Fire Shakeup Political Move,” Salt Lake Telegram, August 14, 1943.

54 1943Annual Report of the Salt Lake City Fire Department, January 1944.

55 “Funeral Honors J.K. Piercey,” Deseret News, April 18, 1961.

56 “Important Shoes to Fill,” Deseret News, April 18, 1961.