A circus fire occurred on July 6, 1944, in Hartford, Connecticut, killing at least 167 people and leaving more than 700 injured. It was one of the worst fire disasters in United States history. The fire broke out during an afternoon performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus that was attended by 6,000 to 8,000 people. It was the deadliest disaster ever recorded in Connecticut.
Background
In mid-20th century United States, a typical circus traveled from town to town by train, performing under a huge canvas tent commonly called a "big top". The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus was no exception, but stood out as the largest circus in the country.
The circus had been experiencing shortages of personnel and equipment as a result of the United States' involvement in World War II. Delays and malfunctions in the ordinarily smooth order of the circus had become commonplace. On August 4, 1942, while the circus was in Cleveland, Ohio, a fire had broken out in the menagerie, killing a number of animals. When the circus arrived in Hartford, Connecticut, on July 5, 1944, the trains were so late that one of the two shows scheduled for that day had been canceled. In circus superstition, missing a show is considered extremely bad luck, and although the July 5, 1944, evening show ran as planned, many circus employees may have been on their guard, half-expecting an emergency or catastrophe.
The next day was a Thursday; the crowd at the 2:15 afternoon performance was dominated by women and children. The size of the audience that day has never been established with certainty, but the best estimate is about 7,000.
Big top layout
The big top could seat 9,000 spectators around its three rings and measured 200 feet (61 m) wide by 450 feet (140 m) long. It had 15-foot-high (4.6 m) sidewalls and its roof was 48 feet (15 m) high. The tent's canvas had been coated with 1,800 pounds (820 kg) of paraffin wax dissolved in 6,000 US gallons (23,000 L) of gasoline, a common waterproofing method of the time; like all hydrocarbons, both substances are hydrophobic but also highly flammable. The big top had been erected over freshly mowed grass and exposed dirt that had been watered down and then covered with hay and wood shavings. Inside the tent there were three rings and two stages with a 25-foot-wide (7.6 m) oval shaped track separating the performance area and seating, which could be either bleacher or un-secured folding chairs. One could exit the tent by either a main entrance or eight other smaller exits; however, during the fire many of the alternative exits were blocked by circus wagons or other items.
The fire
The fire began as a small flame after the lions performed, on the southwest sidewall of the tent, while The Flying Wallendas were performing. Circus bandleader Merle Evans was said to have been the first to spot the flames and immediately directed the band to play "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa, a march that traditionally signaled distress to all circus personnel. Ringmaster Fred Bradna urged the audience not to panic and to leave in an orderly fashion, but the fire had shorted out the power and he could not be heard. Bradna and the ushers unsuccessfully tried to maintain some order as the panicked crowd tried to flee the big top. The ushers also worked to attempt to douse the fire with water jugs that had been stationed in the big top and to pull down the canvas sections that were on fire; after realizing their attempts were futile they began to help evacuate the crowds.
The only animals in the big top at the time were the big cats trained by May Kovar and Joseph Walsh that had just finished performing when the fire started. The big cats were herded through the chutes leading from the performing cages to several cage wagons and were unharmed except for a few minor burns. Though most spectators were able to escape the fire, many people were caught up in the hysteria. Witnesses said some simply ran around in circles trying to find their loved ones rather than try to escape from the burning tent. Some escaped but ran back inside to look for family members. Others stayed in their seats until it was too late, assuming that the fire would be put out promptly. Because at least two of the exits were blocked by the chutes used to bring the show's big cats in and out of the tent, people trying to escape could not bypass them.
Survivor Maureen Krekian was 11 at the time of the fire and lived on the same road on which the circus was held. On the day of the event, she was supposed to go to the circus with a neighbor and her daughter. When she went to their house, she found that they had already left without her. She decided to go to the circus on her own, where she seated herself in the bleachers.
I remember somebody yelling and seeing a big ball of fire near the top of the tent. And this ball of fire just got bigger and bigger and bigger. By that time, everybody was panicking. The exit was blocked with the cages that the animals were brought in and out with. And there was a man taking kids and flinging them up and over that cage to get them out. I was sitting up in the bleachers and jumped down — I was three-quarters of the way up. You jump down and it was all straw underneath. There was a young man, a kid, and he had a pocketknife. And he slit the tent, took my arm and pulled me out.
As she was being pulled out, Krekian grabbed another little girl's arm and pulled her out as well. Frieda Pushnik, who performed with the circus as the "Armless and Legless Wonder", was rescued by a minstrel show performer who rushed on stage, picked up Pushnik's chair and carried her to safety. Pushnik continued to perform with the circus until 1955. Others, such as Judith Shapiro [Cohen], who was about seven years old, were taken higher up into the stands and instructed to jump off the bleachers. Being afraid to do so, Judith refused to jump and instead was pushed off, landing on a chair underneath.
Because of the highly flammable paraffin wax waterproofing of the tent, the flames spread rapidly, helped by the wind. Many people were badly burned by melting paraffin raining down from the roof. The fiery tent collapsed in about eight minutes according to eyewitness survivors, trapping hundreds of spectators beneath it. Because of a picture that appeared in several newspapers of sad tramp clown Emmett Kelly holding a water bucket, the event became known as "the day the clowns cried".
Victims
While many people burned to death, others died as a result of the ensuing chaos. Sources and investigators differ on how many people were killed and injured. Various people and organizations say it was 167, 168, or 169 persons (the 168 figure is usually based on official tallies that included a collection of body parts that were listed as a "victim") with official treated injury estimates running over 700 people. The number of actual injuries is believed to be higher than those figures, since many people were seen that day heading home in shock without seeking treatment in the city. It is commonly believed that the number of fatalities is higher than the estimates given, due to poorly kept residency records in rural towns, and the fact that some smaller remains were never identified or claimed. Additionally, free tickets had been handed out that day to many people in and around the city, some of whom appeared to eyewitnesses and circus employees to be drifters who would never have been reported missing.
Some died from injuries sustained after leaping from the tops of the bleachers in hopes they could escape under the sides of the tent, though that method of escape ended up killing more than it saved. Others died after being trampled by other spectators, with some asphyxiating underneath the piles of people who fell over each other. Most of the dead were found in piles, some three bodies deep, at the most congested exits. A small number of people were found alive at the bottoms of these piles, protected by the bodies on top of them when the burning big top ultimately fell down.
Notable survivors included; Eunice Groark (first female lieutenant governor of Connecticut), The Flying Wallendas, Charles Nelson Reilly (actor, comedian, and director, who was thirteen at the time), actress Jan Miner, (best known for portraying "Madge the Manicurist" in advertising for Palmolive dishwashing detergent), drummer Hal Blaine and Emmett Kelly (renowned circus clown). Some who survived carried the trauma for decades. Seventy years after the fire, Carol Tillman Parrish, who was six at the time, said that "until this day, I can smell the stench of human flesh" as the blaze consumed its victims.
Little Miss 1565
The best-known victim of the circus fire was a young blond girl wearing a white dress. She is known only as "Little Miss 1565", named after the number assigned to her body at the city's makeshift morgue. Oddly well-preserved even after her death, her face has arguably become the most familiar image of the fire. Her true identity has been a topic of debate and frustration in the Hartford area since the fire occurred. She was buried without a name in Hartford's Northwood Cemetery, where a victims' memorial also stands. Two police investigators, Sgts. Thomas Barber and Edward Lowe, photographed her and took fingerprints, footprints, and dental charts. Despite massive publicity and repeated displays of the famous photograph in nationwide magazines, she was never claimed. Barber and Lowe spent the rest of their lives trying to identify her. They decorated her grave with flowers each Christmas, Memorial Day and July 4. After their deaths, a local flower company continued to decorate the grave.
Proposed identifications
In 1981, Lowe's widow announced that Lowe had identified the child and contacted her family, but they had requested no publicity. In 1987, someone left a note on the 1565 gravestone reading Sarah Graham is her Name! 7-6-38 DOB, 6 years, Twin. Notes on nearby gravestones indicated that her twin brother and other relatives were buried close by.
In 1991, arson investigator Rick Davey (along with co-writer Don Massey) published A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire and Mystery of Little Miss 1565, in which he claims the girl was Eleanor Emily Cook and from Massachusetts. Davey also contends that there was a conspiracy within the judicial system to convict the Ringling defendants, and that Segee was the arsonist. Before writing the book, Davey spent six years researching the case and conducting his own experiments as to how the fire really may have started. He described the original investigation as both "flawed and primitive", though he did not work on the original case. Eleanor Cook's brother, Donald Cook, had contacted authorities in 1955, insisting that the girl was his sister, but nothing came of it, and Donald later worked with Davey to establish her identity. Donald believes that family members were shown the wrong body in the confusion at the morgue. In 1991, the body was declared to be that of 8-year-old Eleanor Emily Cook, though Cook's aunt and uncle had examined the body and it did not fit the description they provided. The Connecticut State Police forensics unit compared hair samples and determined they were probably from the same person. The body was exhumed in 1991 and buried next to her brother, Edward, who had also died in the fire.