An otherwise ordinary evening was followed by tragedy and
heroism in the early morning hours of April 11, 1877. The elegant Italianate style six story Southern
Hotel, almost a football field in length faced Walnut St. in downtown St.
Louis. At about twenty minutes after one
in the morning, a fire was discovered in the basement. Notification of the fire department was
delayed by upwards of ten minutes due to a lost key to the fire alarm box,
allowing the fire to spread to the upper floors via vertical shafts.
The first alarm brought six engine and two truck companies
for the fire which ultimately would go to three alarms and requirel the
response of every piece of apparatus in the city. The first arriving ladder company, a “Skinner
Escape Truck,” was led by Foreman Phelim O’Toole. O’Toole was an Irish immigrant who was hired
by the St. Louis Fire Department at the age of 18, about ten years before that
night.
Upon arrival, O’Toole noted fire on the upper floors and
almost a dozen occupants yelling from windows.
Positioning the truck was difficult due to obstructions, but when in the
best position possible, they extended the ladder and O’Toole began to
climb. Fully extended, Phelim found
himself five feet short of the 6th floor window sill.
Accounts vary some, but by most, O’Toole had the occupants
tie bed sheets together as a rope, securing their end to a bedframe, and then
lower the other end from the window. He
swung out on a rope from the ladder tip to the dangling bed sheets, and climbed
to the upper window sill, and began to lower the victims to firefighters on the
waiting ladder. Moving from window to
window, he is credited with saving over a dozen people. Conditions continued to deteriorate, but the
last reachable victim was removed just before the building collapsed, taking
twenty one remaining occupants with it.
It was following the Southern Hotel fire that the Pompier
Corps of the St. Louis Fire Department was developed. Pompier Corps
O’Toole received a $500 award from the city, which he
donated to assist orphans. This was a sizable sum when compared to his monthly
salary of $75.00.
The Southern Hotel was not O’Toole’s last experience at the
end of a rope. A serious fire erupted in
the dome of the County Courthouse.
Phelim climbed the dome with an axe, rope, and hoseline. After chopping through the roof, he tied off
the rope and entered through the hole.
Dangling from the rope, he attacked the fire with the handline.
Shortly after, on July 6, 1880, O’Toole died in the line of
duty. It was not another dramatic scene,
but a “routine” cellar fire in a vacant house.
He entered the building with a hand held extinguisher, and when he began
to operate it, the casing exploded, pieces tearing into his chest, fatally
injuring him at 32 years of age.
His funeral service was as big as his reputation with an
estimated 20,000 people attending. Gone
but not forgotten, the St. Louis Fire Department continues to honor his memory,
christening the marine unit fire boat the “Phelim O’Toole” in 1994.
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