Quotes from Troy Taylor

I have long believed that the ghosts of the past still linger here. They are stark reminders of the trauma and terror experienced by the unlucky patrons who had tickets to an afternoon matinee that day – and a chilling remembrance of a tragedy that should never be forgotten.

Pike County, which now has Pittsfield as its seat, was once so large that it included Chicago, which was then a tiny settlement on Lake Michigan.

Even in the era that we think of as the "good old days" children were never truly safe. Monsters walked among us, even then. In this case, though, the monster in question was not an adult that preyed on a child, it was what the

If anyone here is alive," he called out again, "groan or make some sound and we'll take you out." He looked around the auditorium, taking in the burned seats, the blackened walls, the twisted piles of debris on the stage, and the smoldering bodies of the dead. But the devastated Iroquois Theater was silent.

He said the Iroquois was "completed and OK." Neither of those things were true.

And that was when the massive crowd in the Iroquois Theater auditorium began to panic.

We often fool ourselves into believing that the "good old days" were actually good, but this is far from the truth.

It was a day at the theater – what could go wrong?

assistant chief Paul Lefke. Next, knowing that communications