1915 Auditorium Fire
Page and Fillmore Streets

1 DEAD IN $100,000 FIRE LOSS.
AUDITORIUM, PAGE AND FILLMORE, IS DESTROYED.
FULL BLOCK IN DANGER.
SECOND FIREMAN AT DEATH’S DOOR FROM HURTS.

MRS. BILIE ROCHE AND CHILDREN FLEE ADJOINING HOME.
SCORES RUSH FROM APARTMENTS IMPERILED BY WIND-DRIVEN FLAMES.

DEAD FIREMEN CAUGHT BY BACKDRAFT AS TWO COMPANIONS FLEE.
LADDER MAN MAKES PERILOUS LEAP FOR LIFE AS LADDER FAILS.

1915 November 8

In a fire which destroyed the Auditorium at Page and Fillmore streets early yesterday afternoon and damaged other buildings, with a loss of more than $100,000, one man was killed and four injured.
There were many narrow escapes.

Dennis Mulcahy, hoseman, with Engine No. 21, reaching the fire in response to the first alarm shortly before 1 o’clock, was caught by a backdraft with two companions in the rear of the Auditorium and smothered to death by the smoke.

The injured were, Edward Materne, truckman, burn on hands and face; Lieutenant  Joseph Lackey of Truck 6, bruised foot and ankles; John Gilbert, truckman, injury to back from a fall, and Eugene Reardon, hoseman on Chemical Engine 9, hands badly burned.

Muleahy, with Captain Fred Grote Engine 21 and Edward Materne of Truck 6, entered the rear door from Steiner street and went to the second story of the Auditorium dragging hose. Fighting their way through the smoke they had reached a point near the south wall, where the fire had started in an  adjoining apartment house, when the doors below were blown shut the strong wind blowing from the sea. Instantly a dense column of black smoke swept up the stairway.

TWO ESCAPE AS ONE SMOTHERS TO DEATH

“Follow the hose!” cried Captain Grote, dropping to his hands and knees while groping his way through the smoke, guided by the hose. He found the stairway and made his escape to the street. Materne became tangled in a mass of chairs stored in the room and lost the hose. He reached a window opening on Steiner street as the fire reached him, and Battalion Chief Thomas A. Murphy brought him down on a ladder. Materne, badly burned about the arms and legs, was taken to the Central Emergency Hospital. It is feared that he may have swallowed a flame, and his recovery is doubtful.

“Then we pulled at the hose,” said Captain Grote, and speaking of the tragedy,” and there was no pull on it, so that we knew Denny was dead.”

A brother-in-law of Dennis Mulcahy, Sergeant Lacey of the Fire Patrol, fought his way through the flame and smoke and found the body. Five streams of water were tearing at the resisting corrugated iron walls and a dozen firemen with axes were hacking holes to let the streams through.

MRS. NELLIE ROCHE AND THE CHILDREN FLEE FIRE

In the apartment house at 340 Steiner street, Mrs. Nellie Roche and her three children gathered together a few articles of clothing and fled from the fire. The remainder of their belongings were destroyed by water and smoke. Mrs. Roche last week began an action against Pauline Lord, the actress, for alienation the affections of her husband, “Billy” Roche, who she accuses of leaving her destitute.

Speeding before a strong west wind, the fire swept through the long, ramshackle building, the flames leaping sometime to a height of 100 feet and a huge column of smoke mounting high into the sky.

Into the livery stable conducted by Dr. Beatrice E. Oakley in the rear of 552 Haight street the fire turned. Twenty horses, many of them on the second floor, neighed in terror tugging at their halter ropes.

WOMAN AIDS RESCUE OF PERILLED HORSES

Dr. Oakley ran to the stable, where she found Superintendent J. Litchfield and chief operator A. Mello of the Fire Dispatch trying to untie the horses. She went from stall to stall, soothing the frightened animals with her for familiar voice, and all were led to safety by the two men. The last five were taking out through smoke and shower sparks with eyes blindfolded.

“I think they behaved very nicely, under the circumstances,” said Dr.  Oakley in speaking of her horses, “and the Fire Dispatch men did splendidly.”

Frank Walker and his wife Anna, in their rooms over the Fillmore Street entrance to the auditorium were awakened by the cries “Fire!” Walcott, leasee of the building from the Judson Estate, has been conducting the ”Penny Dance” there for several months. He lives in Ross, but usually stayed at the Auditorium over Saturday and Sunday.

WOMAN TELLS OF ESCAPE.

“I dressed and ran down stairs,” said Mrs. Walcott. “I saw the big curtain at the other end of the hall on fire and in almost no time whole great hall seem to be filled with flame.”

Walcott and his wife gathered together a few their belongings and ran to the street. An hour later front of the building fell in, flinging to the street a ladder on which Lieutenant John Lackey of Truck 3 was climbing to the still flaming roof.

Lackey leaped from the ladder to the street. Cries of horror rose from the multitude jamming Fillmore and Page streets as the mass of smoldering wreckage plunged down above the fireman.

For instant the falling wall caught and hung on an iron spike on a telephone pole, and in that instance Lieutenant Lackey, striking the sidewalk and falling on hands and knees, crawled to safety. Patrol driver H. G. Fitzgerald caught him and dragged him clear just as, with the spike bending and breaking under the wreckage, the mass crashed down on the sidewalk. Lackey escaped with badly bruised feet and sprained ankles.

TONS OF WATER FIGHT FIRE.

In Page street householders across from the conflagration with garden hose attached hydrants were wetting the blistering paint with puny streams, while from Steiner and Hayes streets a dozen engines pumped tons of water over the houses in the block where the Auditorium blazed and crashed to pieces. From Fillmore street the nozzles of the high-pressure system stands drove streams at the main fire with the force which bent the corrugated iron and tore their way through the flimsy wooden walls.

“Hold the fire!”  was the general order issued by Acting Chief Steven D. Russell, when he saw the Auditorium was doomed and the whole block threatened.

Into the open space between the blazing building and the backs of the buildings in Haight street a score of hose lines were carried through alleys, up stairways and nearly impossible entrance.

From every point leaping, plunging fire was fought and held. A dozen houses were on fire at one time, but firemen and streams of water followed flames and put them back.

From the midst of the seething caldron of flame in which the Auditorium was sinking, a blazing torch was launched toward Haight street. It fell through a skylight into the plumbing establishment of A. A. Sullivan, 542 Haight street. A bundle of rags was ignited and the flames swept to the street, burning awnings in the store and to I. Vailot’s Confectionery, 540 Haight street.  Lodging houses, bakery’s, laundries, millinery stores and other small establishments suffered from water all along the street.

VIOLIN RESCUED.

In Fillmore street the office of Karl Krone, an agent, was completely swept by fire, in a tailor shop beneath would have suffered as complete construction but for the work of the Fire Patrol with tarpaulins.

Across the street stood Mrs. Krone, weeping and ringing her hands. She seemed more distressed over the tailor shop then her husband’s offices.

“My husband’s violin, which was his father’s and greatfather’s is in there. He always played for me. Oh, save it!”

A member of the Fire Patrol ran into the shop and found the violin. The woman, still weeping, left hugging the instrument in her arms.

The Catholic Book Store, Mrs. B. Heyerman 391 Fillmore street,; Coleman Candy Store, 393, and Sullivan Sign Co., 389, were damaged by fire and water.

Mulcahy, who lost his life in the fire, was the sole support of his widowed mother and a sister, Margaret, with whom he lived at 866 Haight street.  Both women collapsed went told by Father Joseph McQuaid that Mulcahy was dead.

HALL BUILT IN 1906.

The Auditorium was built in and fall of 1906, in response to the demand for halls with resumption of social affairs following the big fire. The property belonged to the Judson Estate.  Cost of the structure was $92,000.

Several months ago the place was leased by Frank Walcott who started the “Penny Dance.”  There was no insurance on the building or its contents. Walcott estimated his loss at $2,500.
Source:  San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco, 08 November 1915, Monday, Page 1 and 4, column 2.

CROSSED WIRES CAUSE OF FIRE
REPORT MADE ON FATAL $100,000 AUDITORIUM BLAZE.

1915 November 9

The fire which early Sunday afternoon destroyed the auditorium, at Page and Fillmore streets, was caused by crossed circuit wires, according to the following statements issued yesterday by Fire Marshall Charles Towe.

My investigation convinces me cross circuit wires were responsible for destruction of the Auditorium. The fire broke out simultaneously in different parts of the building and probably burned from a half an hour to an hour before discovered.

Building was nothing but the firetrap. Another building I consider a menace and a firetrap is the Dreamland rink.
Source: San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco, 09 November 1915, Tuesday, Page 3.

Extracted from original sources with grammar and spelling as published.

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