Rhythm Club fire

The dance hall, a converted blacksmith shop once used as a church, was in a one-story steel-clad wood-frame building at 1 St. Catherine Street, 18 blocks from the city's business district. The building was owned by the Byrnes family and was leased by a social group called the Money Wasters. The group hosted events and dances and brought in a live band to perform. The original band that was scheduled to perform was Tiny Bradshaw and his orchestra, but due to a scheduling conflict the band canceled and was replaced by Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians, an orchestra from Chicago. Money Wasters member Ed Frazier ran the club on the night of the fire. ==Fire==

On the night of the fire, the club recorded 577 paid admissions and 150 passes, and the orchestra had 14 members and 5 attendants, bringing a likely final total number of people at the club to 746. Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians was performing when the fire started near the main entrance door around 11:00 pm and, fed by Spanish moss that had been draped over interior's rafters as a decoration, quickly engulfed the structure. To ensure there were no bugs in the decorative moss, it had been sprayed with FLIT, a petroleum-based insecticide. Under the dry conditions, flammable methane gas was generated from the moss. The Natchez Fire Department did not yet exist, but two volunteer companies provided one full-time firefighter. One of the men lived and worked from the Phoenix Fire Station, about four blocks from the Rhythm Night Club. The fire station received its first telephone call about the club fire at around 11:15 p.m. The first fire engine arrived within minutes, and the first hose was targeted at the front entrance and upper ceiling of the lobby and the second was sent into a small open window at the rear of the club. The fire was put out after around ten to thirty minutes. 21 of the 24 existing windows had been boarded Blinding smoke made movement difficult. Survivors remembered the burning moss falling from the ceiling and forming a barrier between the dance floor and the exit, with the moss igniting clothing and hair of victims and survivors. The front door was the only exit, and the doors swung inward. Due to the walls being made of metal, and little ventilation for the heat or the smoke, the walls held the heat in the club like an oven. When water from the fire hoses hit the metal siding, it created steam that scalded many victims. Doctors later found that most of the dead had been suffocated by smoke inhalation or crushed as the crowd was pushed to the rear of the building. Most of the bodies were found piled near the rear of the building by the bandstand, the stacked bodies reaching shoulder height. The bandmates who died were John Reed Jr., James Coles, Clarence Porter, Henry Walker, Paul Scott, Calvin Roberts, Jesse Washington, and his vocalist Juanita Avery. Local victims were buried at the Watkins Street Cemetery. In the aftermath of the fire, citizens of Natchez raised more than $5,000 to help the local Red Cross. ==Aftermath==

People believed the fire to be accidental, started by a carelessly discarded match or cigarette that then ignited the decorative Spanish moss. Other sources claim a fire from a hamburger stand located near the exit spread to the Spanish moss and grew rapidly. The day after the blaze, five men were arrested following reports they had drunkenly threatened in an argument to burn the building down. Charges against them were later dropped. Hotel employee Ernest Wright stood by the entrance on the night of the fire and later reported that he heard two women arguing, with one accusing the other of setting the club on fire. All indications in later investigations pointed to an accidental cause of the fire. More than 15,000 mourners attended the funeral of Walter Barnes, and the Natchez Social and Civic Club of Chicago raised money for the victims' families and for the memorial. There were no building occupancy restrictions at the time of the fire. Future laws and codes would limit the number of people allowed in a structure and require doors to open outward to prevent people from being trapped. On November 6, 2010, the Rhythm Club Museum, commemorating the tragedy, opened in Natchez. The site where the fire happened remains empty and exists today as an empty grassy plot of land with a memorial sign inside informing passersby of the tragedy. == Depiction in media ==

A documentary film, The Rhythm Club Fire, was completed in December 2012. The documentary is now available on Youtube. Atlanta playwright Danese Frazier Turner, granddaughter of Ed Frazier, wrote, produced and co-directed a play titled “Death by Dancing” commemorating the disaster. Purpose and Power Connection, a worship arts ministry, presented the production. The disaster was memorialized in songs such as "Mississippi Fire Blues" and "Natchez Mississippi Blues", by the Lewis Bronzeville Five; "The Natchez Fire", by Gene Gilmore; "The Death of Walter Barnes", by Leonard Caston; "The Natchez Burnin", by Howlin' Wolf; and "Natchez Fire", by John Lee Hooker. A historical marker has been placed at the site of the club, which contains a museum to the club and the fire as of 2016. ==See also==