From: Paul Andrews at lost-in-history.com:

One of the worst train wrecks in U.S. history happened with, of all things, a Circus Train.  It was carrying over 400 performers when another train rear-ended it in the dead the night; and they burst into flames. The horrific tragedy happened to the famous Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus at Dutchman’s Curve near Hammond, Indiana on 22 June 1918.  The circus train was stopped on the tracks for repairs. The circus train wreck killed 89 performers and roustabouts, and injured over 150 more.   How could such a terrible disaster have occurred during the Golden Age of railroads?  

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was the third-largest in the U.S., a Midwestern version of the Barnum & Baily Greatest Show. The H-W Circus had some of the most excellently trained animals, well-known trapeze artists, and spectacular equestrian routines.  By 1918, the company employed around 250 performers – acrobats, trapeze artists, clowns, and wild animal tamers; not to mention all the roustabouts who kept it going.  Circus owner Benjamin Wallace purchased the Carl Hagenbeck Circus in 1907.  In just a decade, the combined circus grew into a million-dollar extravaganza, which even owned its own trains. 

The circus required two, 28-car trains to transport all the tents, performers, animals, and midway across the U.S. The expansion of railroads in the latter half of the 1800’s fueled a Golden Age for circuses, as well as railroads. By 1900, nearly 100 circuses traveled between U.S. towns and cities. Back then, live circuses were an unmatched spectacle of daring, humor, and shear amazement. When the circus came to town, it was an unofficial holiday, schools and stores were closed and even factories shut down.

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Side Show performers

The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus had just wrapped up 2 successful shows in Michigan City, Indiana.  They were now enroute overnight to Hammond, only 45 miles away. The first train contained the performing animals, tents, midway and most of the circus workers.  The second train carried the performers and the remaining roustabouts. It was standard to send the animals in the first train ahead of the performers. That way, the animals could be unloaded, penned, and fed. This practice saved all the circus animals, but doomed the performers.

The first train made it safely to Hammond that night without incident.  But engineers on the second were forced to stop that train to fix a “hotbox” or overheated axle bearings – a serious problem if not addressed. They were able to pull the first cars off on a side track, but five of the rear ones, including 4 sleeper cars, remained on the main track.  This should not have been a problem as the rail line was aware and turned on red warning lights along the tracks.

Around 4 o’clock in the morning on Saturday, June 22, an empty Michigan Central train, led by an experienced railroad engineer, Alonzo Sargent, was rapidly approaching on the tracks behind them.  He and his train were headed to the west coast to pick up U.S. army soldiers for The Great War in Europe (World War I).  Sargent knew he was following 2 circus trains that were going much slower than his empty train.

As the crew worked, and the performers slept, the empty train came barreling towards them.

The engineer blew past several red stop signals AND the frantically waving lanterns of the circus train’s engineers. All his experience and knowledge was for naught as Sargent’s train inexplicably slammed into the back of the stopped circus train at close to 45 mph. The collision was so loud that farmers asleep in the countryside were startled awake.  They dressed and went to see what on earth had occurred.  

When the Michigan Central train rammed into the red caboose of the circus train, it splintered the caboose like kindling.  Then it continued on into the four wooden sleeper cars, filled with sleeping circus performers. The empty troop train’s massive engine and steel Pullman cars tore easily through the 4 wooden cars as well. Dozens were killed instantly.

Henry Miller, the assistant lighting manager, was a survivor thrown from the wreckage with minor injuries. “I was in the last coach, and was asleep when we were hit. I woke to the sound of splintering wood … Then there was another crash, and another, and another … The train buckled on itself.”

To make matters worse, the circus cars were lit inside with kerosene lamps hanging on the walls.  They smashed and exploded, spewing flames across the shattered wood, rapidly igniting the 4 cars.   Wherever the oil splattered, the fire followed.  Some survivors not killed instantly managed to claw their way out of the debris.  Others desperately cried out for help before the hungry fire engulfed them.

All four sleeping cars were completely engulfed in flames in a matter of minutes.

Survivors from the front of the train were knocked out of their berths when their cars jumped the tracks.  They climbed outside into the dark night and saw the rear of the train ablaze.  They ran back to the shouts and screams of their surviving coworkers.  The uninjured survivors risked their own lives trying to rescue their companions trapped in the burning wreckage.  One acrobat, trapped beneath the wooden walls, was pulled out by a clown just as the flames were licking his legs.  But most weren’t so lucky.

Fire engines from both Hammond and Gary, Indiana rushed to the scene.  But delivering enough water to fight the huge fires was next to impossible.  The only supply came from the shallow marshes aside the tracks. Hammond also brought in a wrecking crane to dig people out.  But it couldn’t be used because the fire’s heat was too intense. The survivors could only stand back helplessly and watch the four train cars burn.

The aftermath of the Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus Train Wreck in Hammond, Indiana

By dawn’s pink light, the burning cars were consumed down to blackened metal wheels and smoking heaps of ashes.  The engineer, Alonzo Sargent, and his fireman were uninjured and arrested by local police. Most of the dead were burned beyond recognition. The task of identifying the corpses was hopeless. Some survived the initial crash but succumbed to their injuries at the Hammond and Gary hospitals. Many of the dead were simple circus roustabouts, people who joined the traveling circus doing odd jobs.

The circus kept few records on their roustabouts, most of whom were immigrants.

When reports of the circus train wreck made the newspapers, scenes of unspeakable horror were retold to a shocked country.  89 people were killed and more than 150 injured. Railway investigators believed most victims died within the first minute after the collision.  Among the dead were some famous circus performers – wild animal trainer Millie Jewel, “The Girl Without Fear”; Jennie Todd, an aerialist in the Flying Wards; bareback rider Louise Cottrell; Wild West rider Verna Connor; the strongmen Derickx brothers; and the wife and sons of head clown Joe Coyle.

Five days later, 53 were buried in a mass grave plot.  As luck or fate would have it, the Showman’s League of America, a fraternal order, had purchased an area of Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, IL, for circus performers. When the coffins arrived, more than 1,500 mourners gathered to pay their final respects.   Only 5 of the 53 victims were identified.  Most were marked as “unknown,” or under markers like tent man, smiley clown, or 4 horse driver.

Mass grave for Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train wreck victims.

The Showman’s League memorialized the mass grave with a statue of a stone elephant, its head and trunk drooping in sorrow. Today, that portion of Woodlawn Cemetery is known as Showman’s Rest.

In the aftermath, families of the deceased struggled with who they should blame. The circus company?  The railway? The engineer?  All of them pointed fingers at the others. Engineer Alonzo Sargent and his fireman Gustave Klauss were criminally charged with manslaughter. Sargent reportedly had fallen asleep and therefore responsible for the crash. In the 1910s, there was no oversight of train conductors.

Sargent had been awake on the job for over 24 hours, driving trains across the Midwest. A few hours before the accident, he’d eaten a heavy supper and taken some medication.  All that, plus driving a train in the dark of night, he dropped into a deep sleep. He had known circus trains were in front of him, but didn’t know one had stopped for repairs. Sargent slept through two warning signals as well as the waving lanterns from the frantic circus train engineers.

At the trial, the jury was dead-locked, and a mistrial declared.

The Indiana prosecutor decided NOT to re-try the case and all of the charges against the two men were dismissed. The Interstate Commerce Commission investigating the accident cited the use of wooden train cars as a contributing factor to the deaths. “We discourage the use of wooden cars on passenger trains and urge the substitution of steel ones. That is all we can do.”

What became of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus? Its owner and the surviving performers decided to continue the show, for no other reason than to honor their dead companions.  Despite the physical and psychological toll of the accident, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus missed only two performances in its summer schedule.  Thanks to other circuses providing spare equipment and crew, they were able to continue their mid-west tour. The remaining members, and those from circuses from around the country, all pitched in. 

SOURCE: LOST-IN-HISTORY.COM PAUL ANDREWS

On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared.  The following article on the history.com website details the disappearance, the investigation and the discovery of the remains.

From: history.com:

The remains of three civil rights workers whose disappearance on June 21 garnered national attention are found buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi in 1964 to help organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The third man, James Chaney, was a local African American man who had joined CORE in 1963. The disappearance of the three young men led to a massive FBI investigation that was code-named MIBURN, for “Mississippi Burning.”

Michael Schwerner, who arrived in Mississippi as a CORE field worker in January 1964, aroused the animosity of white supremacists after he organized a successful boycott of a variety store in the city of Meridian and led voting registration efforts for African Americans. In May, Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi, sent word that the 24-year-old Schwerner, nicknamed “Goatee” and “Jew-Boy” by the KKK, was to be eliminated. On the evening of June 16, two dozen armed Klansmen descended on Mt. Zion Methodist Church, an African American church in Neshoba County that Schwerner had arranged to use as a “Freedom School.” Schwerner was not there at the time, but the Klansmen beat several African Americans present and then torched the church.

On June 20, Schwerner returned from a civil rights training session in Ohio with 21-year-old James Chaney and 20-year-old Andrew Goodman, a new recruit to CORE. The next day—June 21—the three went to investigate the burning of the church in Neshoba. While attempting to drive back to Meridian, they were stopped by Neshoba County Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price just inside the city limits of Philadelphia, the county seat. Price, a member of the KKK who had been looking out for Schwerner or other civil rights workers, threw them in the Neshoba County jail, allegedly under suspicion for church arson. After seven hours in jail, during which the men were not allowed to make a phone call, Price released them on bail. After escorting them out of town, the deputy returned to Philadelphia to drop off an accompanying Philadelphia police officer. As soon as he was alone, he raced down the highway in pursuit of the three civil rights workers. He caught the men just inside county limits and loaded them into his car. Two other cars pulled up filled with Klansmen who had been alerted by Price of the capture of the CORE workers, and the three cars drove down an unmarked dirt road called Rock Cut Road. Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney were shot to death and their bodies buried in an earthen dam a few miles from the Mt. Zion Methodist Church.

The next day, the FBI began an investigation into the disappearance of the civil rights workers. On June 23, the case drew national headlines, and federal agents found the workers’ burned station wagon. Under pressure from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the FBI escalated the investigation, which eventually involved more than 200 FBI agents and scores of federal troops who combed the woods and swamps looking for the bodies. The incident provided the final impetus needed for the 1964 Civil Rights Act to pass Congress on July 2, and eight days later FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover came to Mississippi to open a new Bureau office. Eventually, Delmar Dennis, a Klansman and one of the participants in the murders, was paid $30,000 and offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for information. On August 4, the remains of the three young men were found. The culprits were identified, but the state of Mississippi made no arrests.

Finally, on December 4, nineteen men, including Deputy Price, were indicted by the U.S. Justice Department for violating the civil rights of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney (charging the suspects with civil rights violations was the only way to give the federal government jurisdiction in the case). After nearly three years of legal wrangling, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately defended the indictments, the men went on trial in Jackson, Mississippi. The trial was presided over by an ardent segregationist, U.S. District Judge William Cox, but under pressure from federal authorities and fearing impeachment, he took the case seriously. On October 27, 1967, an all-white jury found seven of the men guilty, including Price and KKK Imperial Wizard Bowers. Nine were acquitted, and the jury deadlocked on three others. The mixed verdict was hailed as a major civil rights victory, as no one in Mississippi had ever before been convicted for actions taken against a civil rights worker.

In December, Judge Cox sentenced the men to prison terms ranging from three to 10 years. After sentencing, he said, “They killed one n*****, one Jew, and a white man. I gave them what I thought they deserved.” None of the convicted men served more than six years behind bars.

On June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the three murders, Edgar Ray Killen, was found guilty of three counts of manslaughter. At eighty years of age and best known as an outspoken white supremacist and part-time Baptist minister, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison. Killen died in 2018.

SOURCE: HISTORY.COM