Justin C. Cliburn
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A Familiar Threat

5/9/2021

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Yes, the war was over, and the pandemic gone, but a far more insidious danger remained, thought John Connolly. The enemy now was one that had never really gone away; it had only been overshadowed by the War to End All Wars and the worst pandemic in a century: fire. Connolly was a fire insurance agent, and, from his office in Oklahoma City, he wanted to overhaul Oklahoma’s fire safety culture. Born in Ontario in 1859, Connolly embodied the pioneer spirit of the old west. At 20 years old, he emigrated to Grafton, North Dakota, where he became a prominent businessman. Always up to a challenge, he sold the business in 1897 and headed for the Klondike—at 38 years old, he was risking it all to become a prospector. But mining wasn't for him, and he soon was back in business in North Dakota. Connolly valued service to the community and was a prominent member of the Democratic National Committee in North Dakota.

But Oklahoma City, he heard, was booming, and Oklahoma Territory was applying for statehood. It had a strong Democratic party, and it presented a lot of opportunity for a man like Connolly. So, after 23 years in North Dakota, Connolly picked up and moved south. In Oklahoma, Connolly found his place as a fire insurance agent. Like in North Dakota, Connolly was heavily involved in his community and the state Democratic party.

In 1909, just as drought began scorching the state, Connolly's own home caught fire. Only a closet was destroyed, and no one was hurt. But Connolly never stopped thinking of what could have been if the fire started elsewhere in the home or if the fire department had not arrived so quickly.
Picture
Oklahoma City, 1910
Connolly was sickened in 1918 by the great loss of life suffered in the Oklahoma State Hospital asylum fire. There, a closet fire spread to three wood-framed buildings—two of them dormitories—killing 38 males, both adults and children. That the open-air, light wood buildings were a fire hazard was no secret to Connolly or anyone else. Just a week before, Governor Robert L. Williams toured the facilities and deemed them unsafe. At the time of the fire, the state was making plans to replace the old wooden buildings with brick ones, the Governor said.

This reeked of excuse to Connolly, who believed the buildings should never have been used in the first place. Doing so ignored a myriad of fire safety protocols, creating a fire hazard that was exacerbated by mentally unwell patients unable to comprehend the danger fire presented. In fact, many patients who had been rescued by heroic nurses promptly ran right back into the building, where they died. If this was clear to an insurance agent, it had to have been clear to the state and hospital system, he thought. If there was any good to come from the hospital tragedy, Connolly hoped it was that the legislature would finally pass building codes to prevent such tragedies in the future.

He was wrong. Whether motivated by financial concerns or the life lost being considered without value—or, likely, both—the legislature did nothing. Between his training and experience in the fire insurance industry and seeing his own home catch fire, Connolly knew the dangers of ignoring fire safety protocols and resolved to make a difference. He hated seeing the human cost of ignorance and tried to educate his clients whenever possible. But there was only so much an insurance agent could do.

In 1919, Connolly got his chance to do much more when newly-elected Governor James B. A. Robertson appointed him State Fire Marshal. 

Immediately, he began instituting change. He was well aware of the lessons learned from catastrophic fires elsewhere—the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago that killed 600; the Rhoads Opera House fire that killed 170 in Pennsylvania; the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 in New York City—and he pushed a proactive agenda to prevent such tragedies in Oklahoma.

Connolly was never a firefighter, but he studied fire like others studied art. He never missed an issue of the National Fire Protection Association’s newsletter. Like other pioneers of the field, Connolly believed every fire had a lesson to teach, a lesson that could prevent future fires: one step back, yes, but three steps forward. 

* * *
​
The threat of fire was not an abstract concept to Kiowa County. The cautionary tales of Collinwood, Rhoads, and Triangle were not "big city" problems from which Kiowans were isolated. Not at all. From the beginning, fire was an ever-present antagonist in Hobart, the county seat. A history of Hobart inevitably includes a history of fires. The Phoenix Theater, in a bit of irony, disappeared into a pile of ash and rubble in 1903—but not before its tentacle-like flames destroyed 100 businesses in its vicinity. Townspeople tried everything to stop the spread of the blaze—including destroying buildings with dynamite to create a fire-break—but nothing worked until there was nothing left to burn.

A year later, the worst wildfire in the county's recorded history swept through Hobart fanned by 90 mph winds. Homes and businesses throughout town were destroyed by fire, flying timber, and smoke damage. One night in 1916, eight downtown buildings, including the post office, burned to the ground. A month later, the OK Livery stable—and two of its horses—suffered the same fate. Just one year later, the Hobart opera house was destroyed by fire, almost killing the town's fire chief in the process. The last of Hobart's original wooden shacks were destroyed by flames in 1921. In February 1924, the First Christian Church burned to the ground during a night so cold that water froze before it could quench the flames.

From these fires, however, no lives were lost, and perhaps that provided a false sense of security. Fire was as natural as lightning to those early Kiowans. It appeared in a terrifying instant and nothing could stop it. After it ran its course, the resilient townspeople simply rebuilt and thanked the lord for their lives—much like modern day Oklahomans after the latest tornado.

* * *

In Oklahoma City, the fires that distressed Connolly the most were in schools. The image of children trapped in an inferno haunted him. A father himself, he could not imagine the pain of burying a child. And many, many parents had to do just that thanks to preventable fires in schools. In 1908, fire erupted at Lake View School in Collinwood, Ohio. The school had two exits, but the one in front was blocked by the fire. Students and staff rushed to the rear exit, but the crush of people in the narrow vestibule blockaded the rear exit as well. Those that did not die of smoke inhalation suffocated inside the mass of confused humanity. When the smoke cleared, the school was in ruins and 175 people had lost their lives, including 172 children.

Yet, four years later, only 16 states had passed school fire safety legislation—and only four of those states' fire safety efforts were considered adequate by the Russell Sage Foundation. Connolly knew that Oklahoma was not one of them. He also knew that rural Oklahoma schools typically only had one door, which swung inward, and he aimed to make every one of them safe. In one annual report to the legislature, he assured lawmakers that the costs of making every building in the state fire-safe would be more than made up for by lowered fire insurance rates. His argument found sympathetic ears, and bills were introduced to create building codes and develop a budget to retrofit buildings, schools being the first priority. But Oklahoma's penny-pinching legislature balked, and each bill stalled in committee. The folly was maddening to the man tasked with minimizing preventable fire casualties—but given no enforcement power to achieve the goal.

Then, in 1923, 300 parents and children were attending an end-of-year play in the Cleveland School auditorium in Kershaw County, South Carolina when an oil lamp fell and exploded. The stage curtains combusted, and the building was soon engulfed in flames. Those that made it down the narrow staircase to the ground floor were stymied by a door that opened inward. As the crush of panicked evacuees tried to exit, those at the front were pinned to the door, preventing its opening. In the end, 77 adults and children died in the fire, which was heavily reported in fire prevention trade publications. Connolly read about the fire and resolved once again to get meaningful fire safety codes passed by the legislature.

Connolly did not limit his fire prevention efforts to building codes, however. He believed in a holistic approach to fire prevention, and, if he could not force changes to fire-prone buildings, he looked for other ways to mitigate destruction, injury, and death. One of the first speeches he gave as State Fire Marshal was about the importance of the state, counties, and cities maintaining suitable roads and highways. Without adequate roads, firefighters could not arrive at a fire in time to be of any help, Connolly lectured.

But the State Fire Marshal had little authority without legislation backing his efforts. Connolly gave his speeches, toured buildings, and made recommendations, but he had no real enforcement power, especially in schools. Unlike a city hall or public theater, school buildings were not under the domain and control of cities and mayors. Rather, each school district was governed by a board of education elected from the community. Nowhere is local control more coveted than in education—even today—and school boards were reluctant to make changes, especially those in poorer, rural areas. Schools were under-funded, and modifying buildings—adding exits and fire escapes; installing outward-swinging doors—cost money, money the district didn't have and money the county could ill afford to provide. Besides, the school fires Connolly spoke of did not happen in Oklahoma,  where the rural one-room schoolhouses of Oklahoma were nothing like the multifloor fire trap that killed so many in Collinwood. And their teachers were competent enough to safely shepherd their students to safety should the worst happen.

By 1924, it was clear to Connolly that his goal—safe schools for every child in Oklahoma—would not happen overnight. Until it did.
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Cover photograph of Medicine Park courtesy of Joshua Rouse.
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