MFDJ 04/06/2020: The Green Hornet Disaster

Today’s Explosive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

During the first half of the twentieth century, the streetcar had become a familiar sight in Chicago. As public conveyances, the trolleys made their debut in 1859, when horses pulled the first covered models over wooden and cobblestone streets. By the 1890s, electricity had taken the place of horses, making the clanging of bells and the bumping of wheels over steel tracks familiar and frequent sounds in many Chicago neighborhoods. So popular was their use that for a time, during the First World War, Chicago operated the largest streetcar system in the country. But as convenient and reliable as streetcars were for the thousands of loyal riders who relied on them daily, they did have their drawbacks. One obvious limitation was a lack of maneuverability and the fact that they couldn’t detour around accidents, fires, or floods, setting the stage for one of the worst transportation mishaps in Chicago’s history, and one of its most notorious fires.

On the fateful Thursday afternoon of May 25, 1950, a Green Hornet streetcar traveled south from the Loop through the slums along the south State Street line. Driving the streetcar was Paul J. Manning, a 42-year-old motorman who had been involved in at least ten minor streetcar accidents during his career with the CTA. A heavy spring thunderstorm the night before had flooded several sections along the State Street line, including the low underpass at 63rd Street, making the way impassable for electric streetcars. Consequently, CTA flagmen had spent most of that day detouring all southbound trolleys into a turnaround on the east side of State Street approximately one block north of the flooded viaduct. As a result, 62nd Street had become the temporary end of the line.


A gorgeous Green Hornet trolley

At 6:34 P.M., Manning was driving his Green Hornet at a speed estimated at 35 m.p.h., dangerously fast for the wet conditions ahead. The CTA flagman on duty was standing alongside the tracks at 62nd Place, one block north of the turnaround, when Manning’s streetcar came into view. As it fast approached his position, the flagman waved his signal to warn the motorman to slow down and stop. But instead of slowing, the streetcar kept speeding with no sign of stopping. The flagman began waving more frantically as he attempted to warn the driver that a switch in the track was open for a turn that would put him directly in the path of oncoming northbound traffic. Included in that traffic was a tanker truck loaded with 8,000 gallons of gasoline destined for numerous Chicago service stations.

Whether Manning failed to see the flagman’s warning remains a mystery. What is known is that once the Green Hornet hit the open switch track, it swung suddenly left into the turn, violently jerking passengers to the floor. Manning was last seen throwing up his arms and screaming in horror as his streetcar careened through the intersection and plowed directly into the tanker. The impact sliced open the tanker’s steel skin, causing an enormous shower of sparks that ignited the spilling gasoline, incinerating Manning and 32 passengers on the spot.

The ensuing explosion rocked the entire neighborhood, and the burning gasoline overtook seven neighboring buildings. So hot was the petroleum-based fire that it twisted steel, fused and cracked windows, and melted sections of asphalt on the street. The walls of several buildings collapsed, though the occupants escaped safely. Drivers and passengers of automobiles lined up in traffic also managed to escape. Thirty people, however, did sustain injuries, some with serious burns.

Four alarms brought 30 fire companies to the scene. A little more than two hours passed before the worst of the flames were brought under control. But it would be a lone time before a sense of calm revisited the area. Newspapers reported that as many as 20,000 people lined the streets to witness the fire. Steel safety bars intended to keep riders from sticking their heads and arms out the car prevented some passengers from escaping through side windows.

When firefighters forced open the trolley’s rear doors they were met with a ghastly scene: “In some cases, we only found the skulls and parts of the limbs,” recalled Fire Marshal Albert Peterson. “We had to remove all of them and make a temporary morgue on the sidewalk.”


A priest administering last rites to the victims on the sidewalk

Several riders escaped thanks to a 14-year-old girl who, while seated in the middle of the car, immediately pulled down on a red safety knob that opened the center doors. Unfortunately the rear doors were fitted with no such device; the so-called “blinker doors” were designed solely as entryways, and didn’t open from inside, creating a bottleneck for passengers trying to use this blocked route. When firefighters tore the doors open, they found a pile of charred bodies fused together.

In a decision that was still being discussed in journalism ethics classes decades later, the city’s newspapers, the Chicago Herald-American in particular, published graphic photos the next day showing the cremated bodies still piled up in the blackened streetcar.

The subsequent investigation revealed that the Green Hornet was in perfect working order, as was the gasoline truck. Like motorman Manning, the truck driver, Melvin Wilson, had also burned to death. But it was Manning who was held responsible for the accident, despite his defender’s claims that he was simply following a CTA policy that placed greater emphasis on maintaining schedules rather than safety. Several flaws in the design of the Green Hornet also contributed to the death toll, including a lack of safety latches that would have provided an emergency escape route through the windows if there were not steel bars blocking the way. Window escape hatches were installed on all CTA vehicles, and steel bars were ordered removed from all trains and streetcars.


A firefighter peers into the streetcar’s scorched interior

In the years following the crash, streetcars began to slowly disappear from Chicago’s main thoroughfares, replaced by buses. On June 21, 1958, the final run of a Green Hornet streetcar was made on Vincennes Avenue, closing another chapter in Chicago’s history of fire tragedy.


The day after the crash, showing the damaged buildings


The cab of the tanker truck shown one week after the crash.

Culled from: Great Chicago Fires: Historic Blazes That Shaped a City

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