The Hartford Circus Fire, July 6, 1944

The Hartford Circus Fire, July 6, 1944

On July 6, 1944, just a month after the D-Day invasion, thousands of people flocked to the North End of Hartford for a matinee performance of the Ringling Brothers Circus, which had debuted in the city just the night before after arriving late from Providence.

It was a typical sunny July afternoon in the Northeast with temperatures approaching 90 degrees accompanied by stifling humidity. But shortly after the performance began the crowd of mostly women and children would become witnesses to and victims of an atypical twist that would go down as the worst avoidable disaster in the Capital City’s history.

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WHAT HAPPENED
The circus rolled into town late in the day on July 5, but because of delays in getting to Hartford from Providence the matinee show scheduled for that day had to be cancelled. An evening show was held in the big top tent that could accommodate just over 9,000 patrons, according to circus officials. Local newspapers carried stories and photos of the caravan of performers and animals making the trek from Union Station downtown northward up Main Street to the circus venue on a 9-acre vacant city-owned lot on Barbour Street.

According to interviews with hundreds of circus-goers that day the heat was equally oppressive inside the 550 foot-long, 220 foot-wide tent when the performance began at 2 p.m. Friday afternoon.

About 40 minutes into the show shouts of “fire” rang out in the tent, which had been water proofed with a mixture of 6,000 gallons of gasoline and and 1,800 pounds of paraffin wax.

PANIC SETS IN
The cry set off a panic in the stands. Many of those nearest the main entrance, where the fire first appeared behind the bleacher seats on the southwest side of the tent, ran to safety through the entrance or by jumping off the the tops of bleachers and grandstands and then escaping by going under the side tent flaps, some of which were sliced open with pocket knives by those who got out first.

Others decided to work their way east out the back entrance toward Main Street but some ran into a blockade produced by three-and-a-half foot tall metal chutes that were being used by animals to leave the center ring and go back outside to cages parked on the north side of the tent. A number of bodies would be discovered piled up by the chute, which also blocked one of nine exits from the big top. At least two people survived inside the body pile, untouched by the fire. When the fire broke out the circus band played the Stars and Stripes Forever, a warning to performers that they should leave the tent. the Flying Wallendas, were poised to begin their trapeze act but descended from their perches high a top the three ring circus and evacuated.

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THE DEATH TOLL
According to eyewitness accounts, the 48-foot tall big top burned in less than 10 minutes. Flaming canvass, sealed with gasoline and paraffin wax burned some to death. Extreme heat suffocated others and and the ensuing panic also resulted in trampling deaths. All told, 168 people, including 100 children perished. Nearly 700 more were injured, some scarred, disfigured and disabled for life. The death toll included 59 children who were 9-years-old or younger.

An investigation after the fire showed that there were 30 pails containing 12 quarts of water each beneath the bleachers, only a few of which were used in an attempt to stop the spread of flames. None of the circus’s 36 fire extinguishers were inside the tent that day, according to witness statements.

THE AFTERMATH
Even though Ringling Brothers carried only about $600,000 in liability insurance at the time of the fire, it would go on to pay just shy of $4 million in claims for the families of 698 dead and injured who filed claims. The last payment to families was made in 1950. The last legal action was taken in 1969, when the award to the late Charles Tomalonis was turned over to the state because he had no heirs.

The bodies of six victims of the circus fire were not identified. Six people who attended the circus that day were also declared missing. The dead were buried in graves marked with the coroner’s ID number in Northwoods Cemetery on the Hartford-Windsor line four days after the fire. One victim, Eleanor Cook,who had been known as “Little Miss 1565” would eventually be identified by a family member and reburied in Massachusetts. The others remain under number markers nearly 75 years later.

Several circus officials also went to prison for charges related to the fire. In the aftermath the use of highly flammable water proofing was discontinued or outlawed. Hartford officials and cities around the country also changed how circuses and other carnivals were allowed to operate.
The Hartford Circus Fire
The worst disaster in Hartford history occurred on July 6, 1944, during a performance of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus in the city's north end.

With several thousand people gathered under the "big top," flames appeared on the tent and spread quickly, inadvertantly aided by the mixture of gasoline and paraffin that had been used to waterproof the canvas.

The fire killed 167 people^[2] and more than 700 were injured.

Circus tent ablaze
The fire spread rapidly on the gasoline- and paraffin-soaked canvas. Click here for a larger image. Photo: Corbis.

Panic proved as deadly as the flames. The crowd stampeded to escape the tent, and many were trampled. Others were blocked by obstacles like steel railings along the front of the bleachers and an animal chute blocking a main exit. Meanwhile, hundreds were saved by spectators, circus workers, and passersby who sliced open the tent or lifted children and the injured over the barriers. In the end, however, 168 people died.

Because it was a circus performance, and because it occurred on a Thursday afternoon during World War II, when many adults worked long hours at war-production plants, children accounted for many of the casualties; only 100 of the dead were older than 15. The injured numbered 487.

Several officials of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus served prison terms for negligence in the fire. But no one was ever charged with starting it. Stewart O'Nan devotes a chapter of his book "The Circus Fire" to Robert Dale Segee, whom Ohio authorities arrested in connection with a series of arson fires in 1950. It turned out that Segee had been with the circus at the time of the Hartford fire, as a member of a lighting crew. He initially confessed to setting that fire as well but eventually recanted, claiming Ohio authorities had simply talked him into believing he was guilty. Ohio's refusal to let Connecticut investigators interview Segee didn't help either. After serving four years on the Ohio charges, he was declared a paranoid schizophrenic and committed for a time to a state hospital for the insane. He died in Columbus, Ohio, in August 1997.

The Hartford Circus Fire Memorial
The lot where the circus performed—bounded by Barbour Street, Cleveland Avenue, Hampton Street and Kensington Street—eventually became the site of the Stowe Village housing project.

On July 6, 2005, the 61st anniversary of the fire, several hundred people, including survivors of the fire and relatives of the victims, attended the dedication ceremony for a memorial created in a field behind the Fred D. Wish Elementary school. Laid out to mark the exact location of the tent that burned, the memorial features a "center ring" consisting of four granite benches and a bronze disk bearing names of the victims and their ages. Flowering dogwoods mark the location of the side and end walls of the tent.

The dedication ceremony was the culmination of four years of work by the Hartford Circus Fire Memorial Foundation. Working with city agencies, the Foundation raised about $125,000 from about 700 private donations and helped design the monument, the Hartford Courant reported. (See "Hundreds Dedicate Circus Fire Memorial," in the July 7, 2005 edition, reprinted on HartfordInfo.org.)

Abatte, Donald
Abatte, Mary
Adams, Gertrude
Akerlind, Elaine
Baker, Frederick
Barry, Gail Ann
Barry, Gladys
Bedore, Mary
Bell, Roy Ritchey Jr.
Bergin, Eldoras
Bergin, Miss Mary
Bergin, Mrs. Mary
Berman, Judith Ann
Berman, Rose 
Berube, Ann 
Birch, Arland
Birch, Marguerite
Birch, Shirley Ann
Booth, Sarah
Boyajian, Alice
Boyajian, Fred
Boyajian, Stephen
Bradley, Frank
Bradley, Helen
Brooks, Miss Dorothy
Brooks, Mrs. Dorothy
Brooks, George
Brooks, James
Budrick, Miss Edith
Budrick, Mrs. Edith
Budrick, Joseph Jr.
Burns, Annie
Carrier, Jacqueline
Charter, Walton
Clark, Edward
Clark, Emily
Clark, Grace
Conlon, Evelyn
Connolly, Edward Jr.
Connolly, Rita Ann
Cook, Edward
Cook, Eleanor
Corttis, Edith
Cosgrove, Mary
Curlee, William Jr.
de la Vergne, Elizabeth
DeNezzo, Joseph Jr.
DeNezzo, Katherine
Derby, Carolyn
Dillus, Anna
Dillus, Loretta
DiMartino, Anna
Dineen, William
DuHamel, Alice
Edson, Ellen
Elliott, Jane
Elliott, Richard
Erickson, Raymond
Fifield, Grace
Fitzgerald, James III
Fitzsimmons, Shileen
Ford, Louise
Franz, Mary
Franz, William
Gallucci, Mary Jane
Gallucci, Rose
Garrison, Margaret
Goff, Maurice
Goff, Muriel
Goldstein, Adrienne
Goldstein, Sylvia
Gorsky, Kenneth
Goulko, Ann
Goulko, Claire
Goulko, Elizabeth
Goulko, Nancy
Grant, Hulda
Gray, Helen
Hagar, Audrey
Hart, Nellie
Hess, Minnie
Hindle, Ada
Hines, Peter
Johnson, Helen
Kavalier, Esther
Kavalier, Sandra
Kellin, Shirley
Kelly, Dorothy
Koob, Bernard Jr.
Koob, Helen Marie
Kruh, Roslyn
Kuhnly, Dorothy
Kuhnly, Georgianna
Kurneta, Mary
Lapuk, Sarah
Lapuk, Seymour
LeVasseur, Marion
Locke, Elaine
Locke, Viola
Logan, Sandra
Marcovicz, Francis Jr.
Marcovicz, Stephanie
Marcus, Martin
Mason, Jarvis III
Mason, Marcia
Mather, Lola
Mather, Sarah
Matteson, Theresa
Matthews, Dorothy
Matthews, Roslyn
Mearman, Charlotte
Metcalf, Marjorie
Miles, Monica
Milliken, Stephen
Moore, Martha Ann
Murphy, Charles
Murphy, Hortense
Murphy, Walter
Nogas, Valerie Jane
Norris, Agnes Emma
Norris, Eva
Norris, Judy
Norris, Michael
North, Miss Irene
North, Mrs. Irene
O'Brien, Daniel
O'Connell, Doris Jean
O'Connell, Eveline
O'Connor, Mary
Pellens, Constance
Pistorio, Carmela
Poglitsch, Frank
Poglitsch, Lillian
Prost, Eva
Prost, Rochelle
Putnam, Elizabeth
Putnam, Mary
Rester, Elizabeth
Rester, Rose
Roberts, Elizabeth
Schinkel, Doris
Smith, Joan Lee
Smith, Thyra
Snelgrove, Edwin
Snelgrove, Olive
Steinberg, Louis
Surdam, Clarence
Surdam, Katherine
Testa, Vincent
Tomalonis, Charles
Toth, Joan
Toth, Regina
Traver, Laura
Venberg, Anna
Vensas, Katherine
Verret, Ida
Verret, Myrtle
Viering, Mildred
Viering, Paul
Wabrek, Anna
Wabrek, Loraine
Waichen, Anna
Wakeman, Bruce
Wakeman, Virginia
Walters, Edith
Woodward, Edwin
Woodward, Lucille
The Unidentified:
"Unknown Parts"
Unidentified #1503
Unidentified #1510
Unidentified #1565
Unidentified #2109
Unidentified #2200
Unidentified #4512
Died later from reasons associated with the circus fire:
Kullick, Katherine
Sartori, Evelyn
Thompson, Anna