Inscribed on the memorial:
C.F.D. on Fireman's Helmet on top
Names of fifteen of the deceased
Chicago Fire Department
In Memoriam
Cold Storage Warehouse Fire
World's Fair
July 10, 1893
The Cold Storage Building was a technological marvel of 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, making ice, keeping meat cold and boasting an indoor ice skating rink. Like many buildings at the Fair, the Cold Storage building was erected quickly with little concern for safety. On July 10th, fire erupted in the building killing 17 people in front of a crowd of tens of thousands of onlookers.
From Lessons learned from the cold storage fire at the Chicago world's fair of 1893:
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"The plans for the World's Fair had not included a cold storage facility within the main exhibition area, but it was recognized that the many food concessions, restaurants and bars would have a need for ice for food storage and beverages and a supply of frozen and fresh produce on a daily basis. The Hercules Iron Works was selected by the World's Fair organizers as the preferred supplier of the facility. The Hercules factory was in Aurora, Illinois, about 40 miles west of Chicago, and they also had sales offices in Chicago and New York. In the preceding four years Hercules had built a strong reputation as supplier of efficient, reliable ice-making plants, including installations in Tennessee and Louisiana described in most favorable terms in testimonial letters published in Ice and Refrigeration March 1893 (5). The Hercules "Model Ice Plant" used a steam engine powered by oil- or coal-fired boilers to drive twin-cylinder ammonia compressors.
The building was five stories high, designed by architect Franklin P. Burnham in the style of a Moorish palace, as shown in Figure 5, with a statue of Christopher Columbus holding a globe at the main entrance. The main building was 255 by 130 ft with plain white walls broken only by windows on the top floor, which was equipped as a skating rink. The towers on each corner of the building rose to 115 ft, with the central tower, which housed the boiler flue, rising a total of 191 ft above street level. The store roof was about 60 ft above street level, and the gallery around the central tower was at a height of about 120 ft. Access to the gallery was provided by a staircase from the top floor, but there was no means of ascent from there to the top of the chimney stack.
The construction of the boiler flue had already attracted a great deal of criticism and had caused a few minor fires in June, resulting in the cancellation of most of the insurance policies on the building.
The alarm sounded at 1:30 p.m. when a small fire at the top of the flue stack was spotted. The responders came from the World's Fair fire service and the local fire station, which was only a few blocks away. As on previous occasions, about 12 firemen climbed onto the roof of the cold store and climbed the staircase from the ice rink on the fifth floor to the gallery of the central tower. From there they nailed boards to the walls to create footholds and climbed up to the narrow ledge that formed the roof of the gallery. However, shortly after reaching the ledge above the gallery, just below the summit of the tower, there was a sudden outburst of flame below them, preceded by a small puff of white smoke (7). The fire at roof level spread very rapidly and cut off the escape route for the fireman up the tower. A few were able to slide down the ropes used to drag the hoses up, but the ropes and hoses were quickly burned through, and the rest of the group were left with no means of escape. One by one they jumped the 60 ft from the gallery to the main roof, but all were killed or seriously injured by the fall.
The tragedy at the cold storage building of the Chicago World's Fair on July 10, 1893, was caused by a combination of human error in designing the building, in executing its construction and commissioning, and in responding to the initial fire alarm.
The fire would destroy this building, the nearby horse stables and then then jump Stony Island Avenue and burn a couple of other structures before burning itself out."
See archival photos of the fire from the University of Chicago Archival Photographic file at (
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Although the marker is in a cemetery, none of the victims are interred here.