The scene of The Hagenbeck-Wallace train crash in which a military train crashed into the The Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train. (Courtesy Circus World MuseumRobert L. Parkinson Library)
Richard Lytle tapped his cane against Mary Rudnick's headstone. "She was a performer," he said, reading the name on the grave. "Equestrian tricks, I want to say." The morning was wet and cold, and clumps of spring snow flattened the grass. He wore sandals and socks, and pulled his black satin jacket across his chest. He tapped on another grave. "Baldy," it read. Like the other headstone, it was dated June 22, 1918.
Lytle thought for a moment, then spoke. "Baldy was a driver," he said. "Probably. Nobody knows for sure. That's why it just says 'Baldy.' Most of these people couldn't be identified. Because of the fire, of course."
Or rather, most of these people couldn't be identified because of the train wreck, which led to the fire.
It's one of the Chicago area's great forgotten entertainment tragedies, and the irony is that we probably wouldn't even be standing here, in a cemetery on a cold day, considering its victims, if the accident hadn't received a mention in the best-selling novel "Water for Elephants" and the new movie adaptation, which opened April 22.
"The Hagenbeck-Wallace train, before the accident," says Hal Holbrook in the opening scene of "Water for Elephants," playing an aging circus hand scanning a wall of photographs, each an image from a long-gone circus, as his eyes well up.
Lytle is a librarian at the Hammond Public Library. He is 63, and last year he wrote "The Great Circus Train Wreck of 1918." Most of its victims are buried here, in this cemetery. As if to illustrate the severity of the disaster, he swung his cane, ringmaster style, underlining what was evident: He was surrounded by rows of graves but only a dozen or so of the headstones had names. The rest had a generic identifier: "Unknown." There was "Unknown Male No. 15," "Unknown Female No. 43" — all the way up to "Unknown Male No. 61."
There are rumors about this place, just off of Cermak Road in Forest Park, just inside Woodlawn Cemetery, a plot bordered by five granite elephants, each with its right front foot on top of a circus ball.
Indeed, if you grew up around here, chances are you know the rumors better than the facts: You probably heard that the stone elephants in Woodlawn mark the graves of five elephants, casualties of a long-ago Forest Park circus train derailment. As legend has it, the elephants, who used their trunks to extinguish burning circus cars, only to die as heroes, were too heavy to be moved and were buried near the spot where they fell. The Brookfield Zoo is down the street; animal sounds occasionally carry through the air here. Nevertheless, ghosts of elephants (never) buried in Woodlawn Cemetery are said to trumpet late at night.
The facts are more harrowing.
"People who pass by that cemetery inevitably do a double take at those stone elephants," said John Goodall, who grew up in Chicago, watching circuses at Soldier Field, then later became president of the Circus World Museum in Wisconsin. "But that's before they hear the real reason all those bodies are there."
The plot is called Showmen's Rest; it was established by the Showmen's League of America and holds 750 graves. Most of those buried here worked for circuses or carnivals; they were circus owners, talent bookers, stunt pilots, high-wire acts, magicians, strongmen, animal trainers. No animals are buried here, though. The largest corner of the plot, the part holding those scores of unidentified bodies, is a mass grave, a result of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train wreck on June 22, 1918; it happened in northwest Indiana, between Gary and Hammond. At least 187 people were injured, and an estimated 86 were killed — according to news reports from the time, many of the bodies were so charred and pulled apart it was hard to finalize an exact count.
The flagman waved a lit flare at the speeding train, now bearing down. It was approaching too fast. His own train, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train, had stopped on the Michigan Central line. Engineers were cooling an overheated axle box. It was 4 a.m., June 22, 1918, just outside of Hammond. The circus train had left Michigan City hours before and was headed to Hammond for a show. The train behind it, a 21-car military troop transport, had left Michigan City about an hour later. It barreled forward now.
The troop train was empty. The driver, a 28-year Michigan Central veteran named Alonzo Sargent, was asleep inside. According to testimony, he passed two yellow signals of caution, then two red signals. In addition, the flagman had left a flare of warning on the tracks about a mile behind the stopped circus train.
Sargent passed this too.
Before the trains collided, the circus flagman testified, that in a last desperate attempt at getting the attention of the sleeping engineer, he flung his flare at the front window of the hurtling locomotive.