Phelim O’Toole

The space will have (surprise) a firehouse motif complete with a significant amount of firefighter memorabilia. The menu will be drawn largely from time-tested favorites from city firehouses. (Firefighters are renowned for their cooking; their cookbooks have their own distinct subgenre.)

Opening is targeted for Nov. 25, just in time for the annual Guns ‘N Hoses fundraising boxing matches at the Scottrade Center.

Phelim O’Toole is a legend among St. Louis firefighters for his heroics in fighting a 19th Century fire and subsequent death in the line of duty. Here’s an excerpt from a piece by P-D historical reporter Tim O’Neil:

Shortly after 1 a.m. on April 11, 1877, the first alarms were screams from guests and employees who saw flames climb the freight elevator from the basement. Most of the 300 guests escaped, but the whirling blaze killed 21 guests and workers and collapsed the Southern into a jagged, smoking pile. Among the dead were eight who jumped.

Fighting the fire gave St. Louis two genuine heroes.

The coroner’s inquest made much of bungling delays in sounding an alarm - the annunciator finally rang as the fire raged - but many witnesses testified to the acrobatic bravery of firefighters Phelim O’Toole and Michael J. Hester, both Irish immigrants. Between them, they saved about 20 people, and they did so from the top rungs of wooden ladders that didn’t quite reach the sixth floor.

To save servants trapped on the south side, firefighters on Faust’s roof lashed together ladders and pushed upward to the fifth floor. Hester hooked a short extension ladder to a windowsill and reached the women. Said cook Mary Kennedy, “He came up like a bird flying in the air.”

On the Fourth Street side, firefighters hand-cranked the telescoping ladders of their Skinner truck, an early hook-and-ladder. O’Toole reached the top rung with a rope and shouted to the trapped guests to lower a sheet. Clambering up the sheet, he lowered the people one by one with his rope to the ladder’s top.

Servant Joanna Halpin called O’Toole “an angel sent for our deliverance.”

Hester and O’Toole, cheered as heroes, went back to work. On July 6, 1880, O’Toole was killed when a fire extinguisher blew up in his hands at a small fire in an unoccupied house at 714 Locust Street. More than 20,000 people attended his burial in Calvary Cemetery. He was only 32.