You may be wondering why I would talk about a fire that happened in Natchez, MS on a Ouachita Parish history blog. There is a Monroe connection.
On the night of April 23, 1940 Walter Barnes and his Royal Creolians were performing at the night club for an estimated audience of 700 listeners. The Rhythm was one of the largest African American night clubs in the area and hosted many big named artists of the day. The club was a long narrow building made out of corrugated steel walls and roof. There were two doors to the building at the front. One of the doors was locked this night. The building was decorated with spanish moss. The moss had been sprayed with Flit, a petroleum-based insecticide. To keep people from sneaking in without paying, all the windows were boarded up. At around 11 pm, disaster struck. It is not known how the fire started. Some said it was accidentally set by a woman’s cigarette touching some of the moss. The fire quickly spread and panic ensued. Those who were near the stage at the back of the building were cut off by the flames with nowhere to go. Mr. Barnes instructed his band to keep on playing to calm the panicked crowd, but it did little good. The metal walls and roof turned the building into an oven. Those in the front stampeded for the one available door or tried to break their way out through the boarded up windows. After it was over, all but two of the band, and close to 200 young concert goers were dead, including a young Monroe woman, Miss Dorothy Nancy Hayward. Dorothy was the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. G.C. Hayward. Rev. Hayward was the pastor of St. James Methodist Church. Miss Hayward had been a Sunday School teacher at the church. Her body was brought back to Monroe to be buried in a local cemetery, possibly St. James Benevolent Cemetery.
The Rhythm Club Fire at the time was the second deadliest building fire in the history of the nation. It is now ranked as the fourth deadliest assembly and club fire in U.S. history. If you would like to read more about it, click here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm_Club_fire .
There is also a great thirty minute documentary on the fire you can watch here: https://youtu.be/gXKxt3Ki6Lo?si=rTLLTQ0paCoANXyK
Ouachita Parish History Tidbits 