Mr. Bryan and Mr. King could not have imaged the infernal tragedy about to unfold at the Columbian Exposition on the afternoon of Monday, July 10, 1893.

Thomas Barbour Bryan was a leading figure in the effort to bring the World’s Columbian Exposition to Chicago and had been its First Vice-President. William Fletcher King served as the president of Cornell College from 1863 until 1908. Their conversation was interrupted by smoke billowing from the cupola of a building in the southwest corner of the fairgrounds. The Cold Storage Building was going up in flames. The inferno would claim the lives of twelve firefighters and three other workers.

The Chicago Fire. Burning of the Cold-Storage Warehouse at the World’s Fair. Brave Firemen cut off from Escape on the Flaming Tower. Drawn by Charles Graham [Image from Harper’s Weekly July 22, 1893.]

King recalls the horrific event in his Reminiscences (Abingdon Press, 1915):

The casualties [of the Exposition] were comparatively few, the most serious of which was the tragic burning of the Cold Storage Building.

Above this building was a turret of several stories with platforms for viewing the entire grounds. A fire having suddenly broken out in the lower part of the building, scores of people were caught on these platforms. I happened to be standing in full view of the building at the time, talking with Hon. Thomas B. Bryan, the philanthropist, and one of the chief promoters of the Fair. In a few seconds the whole lower part of the building was wrapped in flames. We were horrified at seeing people jumping off into the yawning flames below. We were utterly powerless to render any help. Mr. Bryan seemed to convulse with the horrors of the scene. The terrible catastrophe was soon over. The tall flagstaff still stood above the smoldering ruins, holding aloft a banner which was reported to still bear the following assuring, but now mocking, inscription: “This building is absolutely fire-proof.”

Burning of the Cold-Storage Warehouse. [Image from The Dream City. A Portfolio of Photographic Views of the World’s Columbian Exposition (N. D. Thompson, 1893).]