Women Jump From Omaha Building to Escape Flames
On a March afternoon in 1899, a meeting of women in Omaha, Nebraska, turned suddenly into a scene of smoke, flame, and terror.
About twenty members of the Women’s Lodge of Maccabees had gathered on the third floor of the Patterson block at 17th and Douglas Streets. They were attending to lodge business, unaware that a gasoline stove had exploded in a rear room near the elevator shaft. By the time a janitor opened the door and shouted for them to escape, the fire had already spread through the floor…