First of all, there were no animals, exotic or otherwise, involved in the wreck. That would indeed be a tragedy, as the Great Easter Flood of 1913 killed many of the circus animals. The elephants wouldn't leave their trainers, and 5 drowned. Oddly, they were skinned for umbrella stands. No, I'm not making that up, life was far different 106 years ago. Four others survived along with George the hippo and nine polar bears. Eleven people were killed in the flood and the town of Peru never fully recovered.
Peru Indiana was winter hq for several circuses, and the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus which merged in 1907 was housed on the 200 acres of the farm of Gabriel Godfroy, chief of the Miami tribe of native Americans, who sold the property to circus proprietor Benjamin E. Wallace in November of 1891
This is why the museum mentioned later is the Miami County museum, though it's far from Florida
The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was the nation’s third-largest circus, and the major rival of both the Ringling Brothers Circus and the Barnum and Bailey show, which had yet to be combined.
By 1918, the company employed around 250 performers, from acrobats to equestriennes, clowns to lion tamers. Formed in 1907 when circus owner Benjamin Wallace purchased the Carl Hagenbeck Circus, the outfit had since grown to be a $1 million extravaganza that required two separate trains of 28 cars each to transport all the performers, animals, costumes and gear across the country.
When the Hagenbeck-Wallace show came to town, visitors could expect some of the most superbly trained animals, renowned trapeze artists, and breathtaking equestrian routines.
"This traveling circus has two train segments and the train pulling the cars with the animals was dispatched prior to the secondary train which carried all of the performers and workers. The reason for this was the weight of pulling all of the cars with both animals and performers would have been too much for one train engine. Also, the animals were better off sent ahead on the first train so they could be unloaded and fed in a timely manner."
The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus ranked among the most popular traveling shows in the country in the early 20th century, and its packed touring schedule kept the troupe constantly on the move. In the predawn hours of June 22, 1918, the circus train was traveling overnight to Hammond, Indiana for the next stop on its tour.
Just shy of its destination, the train made an emergency stop on the tracks to investigate a mechanical malfunction. Although the circus train flashed appropriate warning signals, Alonzo Sargent, the engineer for 16 years with the Michigan Central Railroad, previously fired for sleeping at the wheel, with an empty 21-car Army equipment train traveling behind, missed all the automatic signals and flares warning him of the stalled train, smashing into the wooden circus cars at about 35 miles per hour.
Sargent initially stated that he had not seen the signals because they were “obscured…by steam from another engine,” but later admitted that he had briefly fallen asleep at his controls. He had closed his cab window, and drifted asleep .When he awoke, he was approaching the rear of the stopped circus train at a high rate of speed and was unable to stop. The crash destroyed the last three cars of the circus train, which were crowded with sleeping performers.
And so, at dawn on June 22, 1918, an empty passenger train weighing 150 tons barreled into a stopped circus train in Hammond, Ind., killing trapeze artists, bareback riders, a lion tamer, a strongman and a clown's entire family, among dozens of others.
Although the Gary and Hammond fire departments arrived as quickly as possible, the only source of water were nearby shallow marshes. A wrecking crane was also brought to the accident site to dig people out, but couldn’t initially be used because the heat from the fire was too intense.
In the subsequent wreckage and blaze, more than 200 circus performers were injured and 86 were killed, most of whom were interred in a mass grave in the Showmen's Rest Section of Chicago's Woodlawn Cemetery.
Showmen's Rest was a cemetery plot purchased only months before the train crash, because John B Warren, president of the Showmen's League of America, a sort of fraternal organization founded in 1913 for circus workers in Chicago, had the idea to have the S.L.A. purchase the cemetery plot, as he was convinced that in all ways, the circus would take care of it's own.
The grave site is unusual in that it contains the remains of 56 of the crash victims, each in its own coffin, but consists of just one hole. It's a big hole, 35 feet by 24 feet and five feet deep.
Train cars in 1918 were made mostly of wood. Immediately after the crash, the wood, mangled and splintered, caught fire from the kerosene lamps used to light the sleeping cars.
"Big Joe" Coyle, a clown, would have been in his mid-30s. He survived the train crash when he was thrown free of the wreckage, only getting minor injuries, but his wife Stella and 2 sons survived the impact, but were pinned beneath debris.
Coyle did not stand by helpless but instead, "in spite of his injuries, labored hysterically to extricate" his wife and children, said a wire service report published in the Belvedere (Ill.) Daily Republican the day after the crash, "until he was dragged away by rescuers."
As the trapped Coyles burned to death, Joe Coyle lay on a stretcher, wept bitterly and said: "I wish I could have died with them." On June 25, 1918, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus, reconfigured but with many of the same performers who just lived through the crash, resumed business as usual.
The circus traveled by rail to Beloit, Wis., where the show went on. Big Joe Coyle did not make the trip to Wisconsin. But his life went on. A history website called Region Rambler reports that in 1922 he managed a vaudeville show called George White's Scandals, where the Three Stooges got their start.
There was a book about this train wreck published in 1972, titled 'No Performance Today', by Warren Reeder, who had begged his father to take him to the circus on that fateful day of June 22, 1918.
But when author Richard Lytle, the local history librarian at Hammond Public Library began his position at the library nearly a decade ago, he was fascinated with the library archive's collection of unpublished train wreck photos, and inspired to publish a new book on the subject.
"Of the many performers who died, there was a 'strongman act' of siblings called The Diereckx Brothers, two of the brothers, Max and Arthur, died in the wreck, but Joe lived and eventually had seven children. At one of my book-signings, one of Joe's sons traveled just to come and meet me and get a book. He said he wanted to learn about the true story of something that wasn't only a tragedy in Indiana history, but also family tragedy for his memories."
Nearby Peru, Ind., is the famed area of the Hoosier state noted as "the old circus winter quarters" and now home to The International Circus Hall of Fame.
https://www.nwitimes.com/lifestyles/chills-without-thrills-hammond-circus-train-wreck-of-recalled-in/article_4e16609f-ee95-5431-911f-7f3ff46b987c.html
https://www.cvltnation.com/showmens-rest-chicagos-circus-cemetery/
https://www.indystar.com/story/entertainment/2018/06/20/hagenbeck-wallace-circus-train-crash-more-horrifying-than-myths/644289002/
http://www.cultofweird.com/death/showmans-rest-circus-graveyard-chicago/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hammond-train-wreck-disaster-1918-killed-dozens-circus-performers-180969428/
https://www.indystar.com/picture-gallery/news/2018/06/18/the-hagenbeck-wallace-circus-train-disaster-of-1918-in-photos/36077567/
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-circus-train-showmens-rest-flashback-perspec-0814-jm-20160810-story.html
Following the terrible 1918 wreck of the Hagenbeck-Wallace train that took so many lives, owner Edward Ballard become associated with Jerry Mugivan and Bert Bowers in a partnership that eventually led to the formation of the American Circus Corporation. The trio operated the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus for the 1919 season putting it on the road on a train consisting of 30 cars, which included 2 advance, 7 stocks, 14 flats, and 7 coaches.
We know that the calliope was on the show from the 1919 season through the 1924 season being used in the show’s street parades.
The year 1925 saw the last of the Mugivan and Bowers parades and following the season the steam calliope along with the other parade equipment was stored in Peru quarters.
In 1935 the calliope was dismantled and the side panels were painted up and removed to the Miami County Museum which is located on the third floor of the Courthouse in Peru, Indiana.
https://circushistory.org/archive/hagenbeck-wallace-steam-calliope/
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