The Day the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ Became a Major Tragedy

Although it came in the middle of a terrible war, one month to the day after the invasion of Normandy, the Hartford, Conn., circus fire seized America’s attention. Novelist Stewart O’Nan deftly tells the story in his nonfiction work “The Circus Fire.”

On that fateful day, the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus caught fire during an afternoon performance and in seconds the whole tent was ablaze above the 9,000 spectators seated on stands below. When it was over, 167 people, nearly all of them women and children, were dead, most of them burned to death.

“The Circus Fire” evokes the feel of America that summer 54 years ago when, if it was really hot, you could only go to an air-conditioned movie or soda fountain to get cool. The annual visit of the circus was a truly special event. You could buy there, for the considerable sum of 50 cents, a chameleon on a leash to take home on the streetcar.

Life was less regulated then and, sometimes, more dangerous.

The big top of “The Greatest Show on Earth” went up in flames because it was not fireproofed, but waterproofed with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline.

Such had been the circus’ custom at least since 1910, and, yes, there had been other rapidly burning tent fires, their lessons ignored.

As soon as the famous bandmaster Merle Evans saw the flames, he led the band in “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” American circuses’ traditional tune of warning and alarm. As the band played the famous march over and over, circus officials pleaded for calm.

But with the tent crackling swiftly overhead, there was not calm but fear and panic. As the audience tried to exit the 18 rows of grandstand and bleacher seats, the aisles proved too narrow. In the great crush of people, children were swept from the grip of their parents’ hands. Some were crushed under the feet of the fleeing crowd.

At two of the four exits, people had to clamber over the iron animal chutes by which the big cats came and went from their acts on the center rings. Some men in the crowd handed children over the chutes, at least one staying so long to help he lost his own life.

Others fought for themselves alone. A uniformed sailor broke the jaw of a woman in his way with his fist as he fought to get out.

O’Nan explores the states of mind of people confronted with an emergency. Some respond quickly. Others deny that it’s happening. “I’m sure they will put it out,” was a typical reaction of some who saw the rapidly spreading flames.

The city of Hartford responded remarkably fast and thoroughly to the emergency. Having a number of war industries that it feared would be bombed by the Germans, it was organized to handle casualties. The state police did an especially professional job.

O’Nan goes into detail on the treatment of burns, which, half a century ago, was much less sophisticated than it is today. Nonetheless, doctors and nurses brought back to a more or less normal life some of the most badly burned survivors.

There was an immediate legal investigation into the causes of the fire. The circus was clearly negligent, not only in the matter of the tent but in its layout, its lack of sufficient water for fighting fires and the absence of some employees from their stations.

An in-law of the Ringling family went to jail, but the principals of the family stayed out of Connecticut and out of trouble.

The exact cause of the fire and who might have caused it were explored for years, but no definite conclusions were ever drawn.

One principal result of the fire was the passing of laws all over the country to require the fireproofing of tents in circuses, carnivals and the like.

Another consequence, which O’Nan explores sensitively, was the lingering grief and fear in the people who lost members of their families and their friends. The bodies of six people were never identified and were buried side by side. O’Nan writes that the effects of the fire are felt to this day in Hartford.