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. Medical examiner seeks to exhume two victims of the Hartford Circus Fire in hopes of identifying them after 75 years » 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 h...