William J Davis

William J. Davis managed theaters and theatrical troupes, primarily in Chicago (Ill.) during the late 1800s, working mainly for the theatrical production partnership Klaw & Erlanger and its successor, known as the Theatrical Syndicate. He was at various times associated with the Grand Opera House, the American Opera Company, and the Haverly, Columbia, Haymarket, Illinois, and Iroquois theaters.

In 1880, Davis married opera singer Jessie Bartlett. They met in 1879, while Davis was managing her acting troupe of the opera H.M.S Pinafore, where Bartlett played her debut operatic role, Buttercup. Bartlett’s most famous role was as Alan a-Dale in the opera Robin Hood (1890), and she recorded popular parlor songs in 1900. William and Jessie had one son who survived them, William Jesse Davis, who worked with his father in theater management as an adult. The Davis family owned a home on Grand Avenue in Chicago as well as a farm, named Willowdale, near Crown Point, Indiana.

Davis was manager of the Iroquois Theater at the time of the 1903 fire, which caused 604 deaths and remains the worst single-building fire in U.S. history. In 1902, Davis and Harry J. Powers had leased the theater building located at 24-28 West Randolph Street (between State and Dearborn streets) in Chicago, Illinois. Davis managed this theater, eventually called the Iroquois Theater, for Frohman, Klaw, and Erlanger. The theater was advertised as "Absolutely Fireproof" on its playbills and was equipped with an asbestos curtain to block the audience from any fire that began on the stage. Despite these precautions, on December 30, 1903, a devastating fire broke out during a matinee showing of the musical, Mr. Bluebeard. Over 1,900 patrons were in the audience, most of them women and children. https://explore.chicagocollections.org/ead/chicagohistory/123/jh3f81w/