Its owners advertised the Iroquois Theater as "absolutely fireproof," but experts who toured the site before it opened in November 1903, found numerous deficiencies. Five weeks later, on December 28, 1903, a curtain caught fire during a matinee. Stage hands were unable to quell the blaze. Panicked theatergoers found that many of the exits were blocked by locked iron gates. All told, it is estimated that 575 died that day from smoke inhalation or the ensuing stampede. Another 30 died in the days that followed. Following the disaster, theaters around the country took steps to upgrade their facilities with regard to fire safety.
