Chicago remembers victims of Our Lady of the Angels School fire, 65 years later
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago on Friday remembered those lost in one of the deadliest fires in the city's history.
Friday marked 65 years since the fire at the Our Lady of the Angels Catholic School, at 909 N. Avers Ave. in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.
The tragedy Dec. 1, 1958, claimed the lives of 92 students and three nuns.
The heartbreaking fire began at the foot of a stairwell. It raced up the stairwell and through the second-floor classrooms.
Those who managed to get out of the wing of the school that burned said that they first realized something was wrong when smoke curled under the classroom doors and wafted through the glass transoms above the doors.
Many students were seriously injured as they jumped from second-floor windows to escape.
The remnants of the old school building were torn down several months after the fire and replaced by a new building. The school closed in 1999, and the space has since been used by two charter schools – the second of which closed in 2016.
The Mission of Our Lady of Angels moved back into the property in 2016 for their food drives and other outreach programs.
Last year, a statue commemorating the victims of the fire was returned to the site of the school.
