Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, episode 027: The Station Nightclub Fire

November 1, 2024 Alan Cross 0 Comments

On September 20, 1929, people looking for a drink came into the study club, a speakeasy at a dance hall in Michigan. It was prohibition, so being there was risky from a legal point of view, even though the local cops turned a blind eye most of the time.

But then someone flicked a cigarette butt in a stairwell and the drapes and curtains decorating the walls caught fire. By the end of the night, 22 people were dead and another 50 were injured.

It was even worse at the Rhythm Club in Natchez, Mississippi, on April 23, 1940. About 750 people were jammed inside when a fire started in some decorative moss that had been sprayed with a petroleum-based insecticide. In the end, 209 people died and 200 were injured.

And then there was the infamous Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston on November 28, 1942. Not only was the place mobbed up, but some of the exit doors were locked to prevent unwanted wiseguys from coming in.

After a busboy lit a match to help him screw in a lightbulb, the fake palm trees decorating the club caught fire. They were made of highly flammable material. By the time the fire department put out the flames, 492 people were dead and 130 were injured.

The Cocoanut Grove disaster was the second-most deadly single-building fire in U.S. history. Only the fires at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago in 1903 and the 9/11 attacks were worse.

These kinds of horrific events aren’t confined to the U.S. Canada, the UK, Ireland, Spain, The Netherlands, Japan, China, South Korea, The Philippines, Australia, Brazil—they’ve all been the sites of terrible fires where, instead of having a fun night out, people died.

Causes range from electrical failures to welding torches to gas leaks to arson. But if you look at all the venue fires since 2000, one thing stands out: pyrotechnic displays gone wrong.

This is the story of one particular night in West Warwick, Rhode Island. It should have been a typical night of metal at a nondescript 500-person venue. Instead, it was one of the worst building fires in American history.

This is the scary and tragic story of the Station Nightclub fire.

Get Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry wherever you get your podcasts. Both Uncharted and The Ongoing History of New Music will be heard back-to-back overnights five days a week on these Corus news stations:

Showtimes (all times local)