Museum Man

💡 Did You Know?

The Hagenbeck Wallace Circus sign was from The Hammond Circus Train Wreck that occurred on June 22, 1918, and was one of the worst train wrecks in US history. Eighty-six people were reported to have died and another 127 were injured when a locomotive engineer fell asleep and ran his train into the rear of another near Hammond, Indiana. Five days later, most of those killed, burned beyond recognition, were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, at the intersection of Cermak Road and Des Plaines Avenue in Forest Park, Illinois, in a section set aside as Showmen's Rest, which had been purchased by the Showmen's League of America only a few months earlier. Few of those buried were formally identified, and so the graves of most of the casualties are marked "Unknown Male" or "Unknown Female." One grave is marked "Smiley", one "Baldy", and another "4 Horse Driver". The section is surrounded by statues of elephants in a symbolic mourning posture. ^ Richard M. Lytle (2011). The Great Circus Train Wreck of 1918: Tragedy on the Indiana Lakeshore. The History Press.