THE CIRCUS FIRE
By Stewart O’Nan
Doubleday, 370 pages, $24.95
On the hot, humid afternoon of July 6, 1944, in Hartford, Conn., nearly 8,000 people crowded into the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for a special 2 p.m. performance. Eager to see “The Greatest Show on Earth,” the audience of mostly women and children instead became witness to one of the greatest fire disasters in U.S. history. Thirty-five minutes into the act, the giant tent caught fire, trapping and killing 167 people and injuring nearly 500 others.
In “The Circus Fire,” novelist Stewart O’Nan re-creates the story of that terrible day, closing a gap in history that up to now had been largely forgotten outside New England. O’Nan succeeds in his transition to non-fiction by constructing a detailed narrative that takes the reader into the burning big top and beyond, describing the fire’s aftermath while answering long-lingering questions.
In 1944, Hartford was the nation’s insurance capital. It was also an industrial city where many residents worked in war-production plants assembling material destined for American military forces scattered around the globe. But after nearly four years of fighting and sacrifice, the population was growing weary, and a day at the circus was a welcome diversion. On July 6, one month after D-Day, people from varying parts of New England converged upon Hartford’s Barbour Street grounds, flocking into the huge, 19-ton circus tent by the thousands. Most sat in wooden bleachers fronted by steel railings, while those with reserved tickets were seated on folding chairs in front.
Amidst the smell of straw and wild animals and the sound of children pleading for peanuts and candy, the show got off without a hitch. Spectators were amused and awed, unable to decide just where to direct their attention. In one ring, tigers, leopards and lions belonging to Alfred Court’s animal act paced back and forth, menacing but tame. Clowns populated the next ring, led by famed hobo Emmett Kelley, who delighted youngsters and parents alike with his sad-faced antics. Overhead, the Flying Wallendas ascended tall poles, positioning themselves for a daring high-wire act.
But the whimsical glee felt by the audience would be short-lived. At 2:35 p.m., a fire broke out inside the tent. Exactly where it started would never be determined, though some think it originated in a men’s restroom near the main entrance. For a few seconds the small flame stayed undetected. But as it crawled spiderlike up the canvas sidewall it grew, drawing the attention of those below. A police officer was the first to notice it, followed by the circus bandleader, who immediately directed musicians to strike up “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” a secret signal to circus hands that something was wrong.
When the fire reached the roof it edged across the top a few yards before erupting into a raging inferno, transforming the entire ceiling into a huge torch. For a brief moment the bewildered crowd stood still, unsure how to react. First came a gasp, then a collective roar followed by a mad dash for the exits. As trainers directed animals into chutes leading to cages outside the doomed big top, the audience spilled from the bleachers. Initially the tent’s main entrance served as an escape route for scores, but a bottleneck was soon created when flames overtook and blocked the path. The tent had six other exits, but four were blocked–one by cables, three by animal chutes. One teenager used his pocketknife to cut a hole in the tent wall, enabling many to escape certain death. Others were not so lucky.
With flames and smoke bearing down, an orderly evacuation became impossible, replaced by pandemonium and panic. People were scurrying everywhere inside the tent, their hair and clothing aflame. In the mad struggle to escape, men and women punched, kicked and pulled at one another. Those who fell were trampled. Parents and children became separated, some forever. Wooden bleachers ignited, then collapsed, adding to the mass of flames and destruction. As support ropes burned, the six huge wooden columns holding up the tent began to topple, bringing the entire blazing canvas down onto the crowd, blanketing them in a mass of fire. The first fire engine pulled up quickly, but even by then it was all over. In as little as six minutes, the big top was reduced to a smoldering scene of desolation. Firefighters doused remaining hot spots, then started carrying out dozens upon dozens of charred bodies.
It is no secret that truth sometimes defies fiction. In O’Nan’s book, the fire’s rapid spread is explained by the fact that the tent had been waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline, substances that, when combined, create napalm. Thus, once the big top caught fire, the audience was suddenly and unwittingly caught inside a flaming crematorium whose temperatures quickly exceeded 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Robert Ringling’s claim that he couldn’t fireproof the tent during wartime without military approval did not hold up in court. Five circus officials were found guilty of manslaughter, though each served less than two years in prison. Settlements totaling nearly $5 million were eventually paid out, forcing the circus into receivership. But for survivors, no amount of money could assuage the grief, stop the nightmares or lessen the difficulty of living with terrible burns and scars. The city of Hartford escaped sanction, even though its fire marshal had failed to inspect the tent before the circus opened. As for how the fire began, officially its cause is listed as undetermined, though some speculated a discarded cigarette or cigar may have sparked it. In 1950, a convicted arsonist confessed to starting the blaze but later recanted.
Because Chicago is no stranger to catastrophically deadly fires, “The Circus Fire” should interest readers here. After all, Chicago did suffer the worst single building fire in U.S. history when, on Dec. 30, 1903, flames swept the Iroquois Theater, killing 602 people, mostly women and children. Heartbreak revisited Chicago in 1958, when 92 students and three nuns perished in the fire at Our Lady of the Angels School. The Hartford circus fire ranks with these and a host of other significant blazes that have darkened the ledger of American history. In most of them, death came quickly after large crowds had gathered in occupancies that lacked adequate exit space and fixed fire protection. After 1956, Ringling Bros. abandoned the use of outdoor big tops for fire resistant stadiums and auditoriums. Not until 1975 would Ringling Bros. play again in Hartford.
O’Nan, who moved to Connecticut during the writing of the book, first learned about the circus fire while researching a novel a number of years ago. After becoming intrigued by the story, he was surprised when a librarian told him no one had ever chronicled the event in a single-volume history, despite its rank as one of the worst domestic disasters in U.S. history. O’Nan decided to write a book and “assume the obligation of telling hundreds of survivors’ stories.” The subject, he found, begged for “a clear and definitive telling, yet the picture available . . . was fragmentary and often contradictory.”
Aside from reviewing official documents and newspaper stories, O’Nan conducted numerous interviews to collect eyewitness accounts that would enable him to construct an insightful narrative depicting the terror under the burning big top. But tackling a story of this nature, with all its emotion, is not easy. To sit down with survivors as they pour their hearts out (sometimes for the first time) is heartbreaking and frustrating. The writer must be careful to avoid being sucked into the drama, losing perspective and turning into an advocate for the victims rather than an objective chronicler. To his credit, O’Nan sticks with the facts and by doing so enables the story to tell itself. Nevertheless, he remains sympathetic, dedicating the book to “everyone who went to the circus that day–those who came home and those who stayed.”
Some passages in the book are disturbingly graphic, but this is necessary, for to gloss over certain scenes would have proved a disservice to the reader as well as those victimized by the tragedy. According to the author’s research, not one fatality was attributed to smoke inhalation or asphyxiation; rather, all the victims had either burned or were trampled to death. Of those burned, many were incinerated, identified only through dental records or by tattered pieces of clothing and jewelry. The identities of six victims–three children and three adults–would never be known; they remain buried and unclaimed in a Hartford cemetery, their flat grave markers inscribed with four-digit numbers. The identity of one child, known simply as “Little Miss 1565,” has nagged Hartford for decades. O’Nan unravels the mystery, suggesting she is a 6-year-old girl whose family claimed the wrong body.
Publication of “The Circus Fire” coincides with the release of another book on the same subject, “A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire and the Mystery of Little Miss 1565” (Willow Brook Press, $26.95), by retired Hartford arson investigator Rick Davey. He believes the big-top fire was intentionally set. In the early 1990s, Davey reopened the case and tried to have a judge modify the official cause from “accidental” to “suspicious.” Instead, the judge changed it to “undetermined.”
In the book, Davey and co-author Don Massey point to circumstantial evidence to show that Miss 1565 is 8-year-old Eleanor Cook from Southampton, Mass. But O’Nan points out in his book that the Cook girl’s dental records do not match the body of Miss 1565, which is why her mother never claimed it as that of her daughter.
Even though the truth to both mysteries–the origin of the fire and the identity of Miss 1565–will probably never be known, the two books show how the fire remains indelibly etched in the conscience and history of Hartford.
In the end, “The Circus Fire” serves as a fitting and poignant memorial to the victims, one that gives voice to those who still grieve and suffer, and especially to those unable to speak. Readers will not soon forget this story. After reading the book, a trip to the circus may never be the same.
