Circus

I continue to work on scanning my Grandmother's journals. The other day I found this entry from July 1944.

As you can see her journals are a mixture of news and family issues. I was curious about the Hartford Circus fire. It turns out it was one of the worst fire disasters in the history of the United States. It occurred during the afternoon performance of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. The performance was attended by 6,000 to 8,000 persons. The death toll was 167 with over 700 injured.

The background of the disaster is interesting. It was during World War II so the circus had been experiencing shortages of equipment and personnel. The circus arrived in Hartford on July 5, 1944 but was so late arriving that one of the two scheduled shows had to be cancelled. Circus superstition holds that missing a show is extremely bad luck. The July 5th evening show ran as planned. The next day was Thursday and the afternoon crowd was largely women and children. The fire began as a small flame on the southwest sidewall as the Great Wallendas were performing. The circus band lead by Merle Evans began to play The Stars and Stripes Forever as the tune traditionally signaled distress to the circus performers. Ringmaster Fred Bradna tried to tell the audience not to panic and exit the tent in an orderly fashion. The power had failed and the crowd could not hear him. The crowd was in a panic as they attempted to flee. My Grandmother indicated the fire was caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette. This was the belief at the time. The true cause has never been determined. The fiery tent collapsed within eight minutes trapping hundreds of guests under it. How did that happen so fast? A common waterproofing technique of the time used on this canvas tent was a combination of paraffin wax dissolved in gasoline. In this case 1,800 pounds of paraffin wax had been dissolved in 6,000 gallons of gasoline to waterproof the big top. It is considered possible that the death toll was much higher than the 167 noted above. The fire was so intense that some victims may have been cremated leaving little or no trace. In addition some victims left only body parts and some of the circus performers and workers were drifters who would never be reported as missing.

The circus later reached an agreement with the City of Hartford to accept full financial responsibility and pay whatever amount the city requested in damages. By 1954 the circus had paid out over $5,000,000 to 600 victims and families who had filed claims. It is difficult to imagine what the settlement would look like now.