Paradise fire escape a unique piece of history

One of the most recognizable features of the iconic Paradise schoolhouse, which is now a museum and information center, is the large metal slide running down from the second story. This unusual appendage was constructed in the mid-1930s and actually is a fire escape.

Around the turn of the century, buildings were being constructed higher than ever before and close together. This led to a real problem with fire evacuation. Those on higher floors may not have the time, or the ability, to exit the building before being caught by the flames. Sometimes the fire was on the middle floor, leaving those up top literally high and dry. This situation led to a rise in the development and invention of new kinds of fire escapes. This remained a constant drive for solution well into the 19th century, and in the 1930s a slide-style escape was invented to aid schools and hospitals with easy and expedient escape.

The slide idea has its roots from that time of great fire escape invention. In 1890 a patent was filed by Lewis Anidjah who had invented a chute for escapees to slide down. The chute was made from flame retardant canvas and landed sliders onto a hammock below. This invention could be quickly set up at the upper stories of buildings to aid those stranded above in the retreat from a fire.

In the mid-1930s, the Paradise school was instructed to put in a fire escape by the fire marshal, who may have suggested that it would be a good idea to have another exit for those on the top floor. The school decided to add this slide-style escape. A window was shortened and the escape was installed below it, limiting the amount of wall to be taken out.

The slide escape was popular in Canada, and in the Midwest, especially in hospitals and schools. These had several advantages over traditional stairway designs. The first was that the slide was far quicker than the stairs. The hospitals preferred them because patients could be placed onto the slide while still in their bedding and slid down to staff or emergency workers below. These slides were often covered, like the one in Paradise, meaning that they would not become slippery in the rain or snow. In schools, the older kids were encouraged to pick up younger nervous students and to slide down with those students on their laps. As for the speed, some of the staff and residents of the Paradise school, when it was up and running, attest that with the slide, the entire building could be evacuated in under a minute. Some schools would get their students comfortable with fire drill procedures, having the classes slide down before recess every day. One school in particular had the teacher join the students on the way down.

Betty Meyer, 96, is the oldest living resident in Paradise who herself went to the school. She was there when the slide was put in. "We thought it was great," Meyer said. She noted that she and the other students got to try it out when it was first installed and all they saw was a very big new toy. For most of the school's life, the younger students had lessons in the lower levels and the older students attended class upstairs, so Meyer was not in the room with the slide until a later grade.

The Paradise school was built around 1910 and had been in operation for 103 years, while the escape itself was in use for nearly 80 years. Kids can still be seen crawling up the slide to come right back down today, though the top level is walled off to prevent break-ins through the slide. Traditionally many of these slide escapes had doors either at the exit or the entrance to keep in the heat during winter, as well as to keep out the bugs.

Karval Pickering, who also went to the school, started there when she was five and retired at 67, working at or attending the school the whole time in-between. She was the clerk for 30 years and remembers hearing "rumble, rumble, rumble," from the clerk's office in the basement and thinking "the kids are at it again." She would go outside to talk the kids out of using the slide, as its true purpose is as a fire escape. However, she remembers herself climbing up that metal tube to slide back down again many, many times.