Rescuers and survivors pick through the smouldering rubble of the circus train accident. |
Old
time movie buffs like me are sure to remember the glitzy, gaudy, gauche 1952 Cecil B. DeMille flick The
Greatest Show on Earth. The veteran
director put aside his customary sandal and sand Biblical epic to use the Ringling
Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus as the backdrop for a somewhat turgid
melodrama. The film was a box office
sensation at the time the movies were losing a battle for viewers to the infant
medium of Television. Impressed, Motion Picture Academy voters picked it as Best Picture over far better films including High Noon, Moulon Rouge, and
The
Quiet Man, each of which is a certified classic.
The
climatic scenes from the movie are a spectacular and gut wrenching circus train wreck and its grizzly
aftermath. In the film a jealous animal trainer and a sideshow operator fired for running
crooked games with ties to a shady character with a financial interest in
seeing the circus fail, throw
a switch leading the circus train to ram a stopped freight.
The
film’s plot threads are all neatly tied up in the wreckage as the beloved
never-seen-without-his-make up Buttons
the Clown (James Stewart) reveals his true identity as doctor on the lam
wanted for the mercy killing of his wife when he saves the life of the rugged
and driven circus boss Brad (DeMille
favorite Charlton Heston). Brad’s rival for trapeze artist Holly (Betty Hutton) The Great Sebastian
(Cornell Wilde) bitterly nursing
an injury that threatens to end his career in the center ring, nobly
contributes his blood to help save Brad.
Holly realized that it was always Brad she loved, not her erstwhile rival Sebastian, and steps
into his role as hardnosed boss to save the circus. She leads the battered and bloodied troupe
into the nearest town at the head of the circus parade while singing the title
song and sets up the show for an outside performance.
The
movie was the first film that Steven
Spielberg saw in a theater and triggered his lifelong passion for the
movies. The train wreck scene in particular
inspired his first teen age film efforts and helped inspire his 2011 film Super
8.
What
people don’t necessarily know is that DeMille’s circus train wreck was inspired
by a true incident, one of the most deadly rail disasters in American history.
Shortly
before dawn on June 22, 1918 a Michigan
Central Railroad troop train pulling 20 empty Pullman cars was closely following a slower moving train carrying
the cast, crew, animals, and equipment of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, then the second largest traveling show in
the country. Alonzo Sargent, a veteran engineer with sixteen years at the
throttle and a spotless record was at the controls of the deadheading train.
Sargent
had been called for this run at the last minute and had hardly slept in 21
hours. He knew he was following the slow
circus train and had taken care to note signals at several crossings and switch
points. He figured he was two miles or
more behind the other train.
But
up ahead at the Ivanhoe Interlocking
crossing 5½ miles east of Hammond,
Indiana the circus train had come to a stop to attend a hot box on a flat car. The exhausted
Sargent momentarily nodded out at the controls of his locomotive. When he jerked himself awake he could see the
red lights of the circus train’s caboose just ahead. While snoozing he had blown through three
signals and the warning flares put out by the proceeding train.
According
to his own testimony before an investigating commission:
I awoke suddenly
and saw the tail or marker lights showing red on a train directly ahead of me.
Not realizing that the rear end of this train was so close. I started to make a
service application, but before completing it placed brake-valve handle into
emergency position. We struck almost instantly after making the brake application.
Don't know whether I closed the throttle or not, but think I did.
Still
moving at an estimated 35 miles an hour the train plowed through the caboose
and the four rear ancient wooded passenger cars at the rear. The cars were jammed with sleeping roustabouts and performers. Most of the 86 dead were killed instantly,
but some were trapped in the wreckage which immediately caught fire from the
smashed oil lamps used to illuminate the old cars. The were 126 severely injured, many of them
badly burned, among the estimated 400 circus people and train crew in the four
cars and caboose.
To
his credit, Sargent, who survived the wreck with minor injuries, leapt from his
cab and immediately began trying to pull survivors from the wreckage, working
frantically for the next two hours.
Although
most of the circus stars were resting in Pullman cars forward, the dead were
known to include Arthur Dierckx and Max
Nietzborn of the Great Dierckx
Brothers strongman act and Jennie
Ward Todd of The Flying Wards. Most of the victims were burned beyond
recognition.
Just
months before the wreck the wreck the Showmen’s
League of America, a fraternal benefits society formed by William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody in 1913,
had purchased a large plot in Woodlawn
Cemetery at the intersection of Cermak
Road and Des Plaines Avenue in Forest Park, Illinois for its members. Five days after the accident the remains of 59
to 61 of the victims were buried in a mass grave. Markers note unidentified male or female.
As was typical of circus folks even when the dead were identified by survivors
their real names were often unknown. So
there are markers for Smiley, Baldy, 4
Horse Driver, and others.
Today
the area known as Showmen’s Rest is
guarded by five large elephant statues. There is a gathering every Memorial Day to remember the dead of
the train wreck and the many circus and carnival people who continue to be buried
there.
Meanwhile
the shattered Hagenbeck-Wallace show struggled in the spirit of the show must go on later celebrated in
DeMille’s film, to resume operations. In
a show of solidarity rivals, including the biggest of them all, the Ringling
show, lent equipment, animals and performer to the company. The circus only missed two dates in Hammond and Monroe, Wisconsin and was able to finish out the season’s tour.
The
circus was bought and sold several time after that consolidating with other
shows. It finally succumbed to the Great Depression, folding its tents for
the last time in 1938 as the Hagenbeck-Wallace
and Forepaugh-Sells Bros. Circus.
The
former home base of the show in Peru, Indiana
is now the International Circus Hall
of Fame.
The
Federal investigation of the
accident put the blame a squarely on the shoulders of engineer Sargent. But the report noted that the flimsy,
obsolete wooden passenger cars and their oil lamps contributed significantly to
the death toll. After that the old cars
were rapidly taken out of service across the country and replaced by modern steel safety cars illuminated and heated by electricity.
Good one, Patrick. Thank you.
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