The exhibition halls and grandstand of Arlington Park racetrack burn out of control on July 31, 1985, in Arlington Heights. They still ran the Million race at the track less than a month later. | José Moré/Chicago Tribune
By Ron Grossman | Chicago Tribune
In the early hours of July 31, 1985, Tommy Trotter thought he smelled smoke.
“I’m a light sleeper,” he told the Tribune. “I went downstairs to check out the kitchen and it got stronger.” He could hear “cracking” in the ceiling.
The director of racing at Arlington Park racetrack in Arlington Heights, Trotter and his wife and son were staying on the second floor of the Horseman’s Lounge in the posh Post and Paddock Club. He woke up his wife, sent his son to notify security, and told the switchboard operator to call the fire department.
The first of what would become more than 150 firefighters battle a five-alarm blaze in the Post and Paddock Club at Arlington Park on July 31, 1985. | Paul F. Gero/Chicago Tribune
The enormity of the blaze was quickly apparent to firefighters.
“It went ‘bang, bang, bang, right up to five alarms,” said Bruce Rodewald, Arlington Heights’ fire chief. Two special alarms followed, summoning fire departments from Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows, Rosemont, Wheeling, Elk Grove Village, Buffalo Grove, Palatine and Des Plaines.
As firefighters arrived, two trainers salvaged 2,000 documents with the identification numbers of horses that raced at Arlington. ”Those foal papers we got out of there are like the title to a car,” Arthur Blaze, a trainer, said. “You can’t run a horse without them on any track.”
The racetrack opened in 1927; the Post and Paddock Club followed two years later and was periodically remodeled. There were false ceilings and sealed off spaces — through which the fire could travel unseen by firefighters. Some used chain saws, desperately trying to find the flames before they reached the wooden grandstands.
“My first thought was of the last fire I went through at Garden State Park, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey,” an Arlington Park jockey told a Sun-Times reporter. Three people were killed there in 1977. Neither humans nor horses perished in the Arlington Park blaze. The fire never reached the stables.
That was all the more miraculous. A watchman at Arlington told the Tribune the firefighters couldn’t attack the blaze until security officers brought a key to its gate.
Joseph Joyce, the track’s president and part owner, got a phone call at his Oak Park home shortly after 2 a.m. He threw on a pink blazer and headed to the track.
Workers emerge from the wreckage of the old Arlington Park grandstand after extinguishing a small fire that broke out as they were removing debris on Aug. 8, 1985. | Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune
“I was banging on the steering wheel,” he told the Sun-Times. “The traffic was so slow. I just kept saying to myself, ‘I just hope it isn’t the grandstand. If it wasn’t, we’d be up and kicking in a couple of days.’”
“We got here about 3 o’clock,” said Des Plaines Fire Chief Don Schultz. The fire was contained by midmorning but later it got out of control, he told the Tribune.
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