The top-most illustration appeared in the
Iroquois program book distributed the night of
the theater premier, November 23, 1903. It
pictures two ticket windows on the west side of the
foyer although one responder said there were three
ticket windows.
Ticket clerk Fred M. Brackebush (1874–1944), a native of Terre
Haute, Indiana, testified during the
coroner's inquest that he was instructed by
Iroquois Theater business manager,
Thomas Noonan, to take the cash receipts to
safety. The grand hall of the Iroquois was
filled with audience members trying to
escape from the theater and Fred couldn't
open the door to leave the ticket booth. He
climbed out the ticket window directly into
the foyer, carrying the cash box containing
approximately $1,700. He took it to store in
the vault at the Best and Russell Cigar
store in the
Delaware Building next to the Iroquois Theater.
Seems likely the theater may have had a
prior practice of using the cigar store's
vault, perhaps when banks were closed at
night and on weekends. With inflation, that
$1,700 would be $54,000 today.
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Fred was one of four children born to civil war
veteran Charles J. Brackbush (1841–1896) and Elizabeth
Hurford Brackebush (1845–1911). Charles was
a coal dealer in Chicago until moving to
Sioux City, Iowa for a few years prior to
his death in 1896. His widow and children
then returned to Chicago.
Prior to working at the Iroquois, Fred worked
at the Schiller and Orpheum Theaters as a treasurer.
Iroquois manager's son,
Willie Davis, also worked in the ticket office,
and was at the theater the day of the fire,
but his actions during the fire were not
reported. He may have been with his father
at the funeral of actor and family friend,
Jerome Sykes.
In the years after the fire
Fred became a chauffeur for the Pardee-Ullmann
Automobile company for a time and in 1918 worked
as a clerk in an insurance office. In 1914 he married
Isabelle Reese. He remained in Chicago while
two of his siblings and their families
relocated in Fort Worth, Texas. On Fred's
WWI draft card it was reported that he was
hard of hearing. At the time of his death he
worked as an accounting auditor and was
single.
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