Showmen's Rest in Forest Park, Illinois, is a 750 plot section of Woodlawn Cemetery mostly for circus performers owned by the Showmen's League of America. [1] [2] The first performers and show workers that were buried there are in a mass grave from when between 56 and 61 employees of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus were interred. They were killed in the Hammond circus train wreck on June 22, 1918, at Hessville, Indiana, (about 51⁄2 miles east of Hammond, Indiana), when an empty Michigan Central Railroad troop train from Detroit, Michigan, to Chicago, Illinois, plowed into their circus train. The engineer of the troop train, Alonzo Sargent, had fallen asleep. Among the dead were Arthur Dierckx and Max Nietzborn of the "Great Dierckx Brothers" strong man act and Jennie Ward Todd of "The Flying Wards".
The Showmen's League of America, formed in 1913 with Buffalo Bill Cody as its first president, had recently selected and purchased the burial land in Woodlawn Cemetery at the intersection of Cermak Road and Des Plaines Avenue in Forest Park, Illinois, for its members. Services were held five days after the train wreck. The identity of many victims of the wreck was unknown. Most of the markers note "unidentified male" (or female). Some are marked only with nicknames such as "4 Horse Driver", "Baldy", and "Smiley." [3] [4]
The Showmen's Rest section of Woodlawn Cemetery is still used for burials of deceased showmen who are said to be performing now at the biggest of the Big Tops. A Memorial Day service is held at Woodlawn Cemetery every year.
Other Showmen's Rests include one at Mount Olivet Cemetery, Hugo, Oklahoma. Hugo is a winter circus home which calls itself Circus City, USA. In Miami, Florida, the largest Showmen's Rest is at Southern Memorial Park where large elephant and lion statues flank hundreds of markers commemorating circus greats and not-so-greats. Tampa, Florida's Showmen's Rest is located close to the Greater Tampa Showmen's Association near downtown.
Following the wreck of June 22, 1918, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus had to cancel only two performances: the one in Hammond, Indiana and its next stop Monroe, Wisconsin. This was due in part by the assistance by many of its so-called competitors, including Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus lending needed equipment and performers so that the show could go on. The city of Hammond also joined in to help the surviving circus performers and workers. Many of the city's residents and shopkeepers gave food and clothing as well. Statues of five elephants surround the Showmen's Rest section of Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois. The elephants each have a foot raised with a ball underneath, and the trunks lowered. (Raised trunks are a symbol of joy and excitement; lowered trunks symbolize mourning). The base of the large central elephant is inscribed with "Showmen's League of America." On the others are the words "Showmen's Rest." Some nearby residents say the sounds of ghostly elephants can be heard at night.[ citation needed ] One possible explanation for the sounds is nearby Brookfield Zoo, which housed elephants until September 2010. [5]
Location used in an episode of NBC's Chicago Fire (Ep. Dead of Winter, 2021). A grave-keeper's arm is pinned under a fallen gravestone.
Forest Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, and a suburb of Chicago. The population was 14,339 at the 2020 census. The Forest Park terminal on the CTA Blue Line is the line's western terminus, located on the Eisenhower Expressway at Des Plaines Avenue. This makes it one of just two municipalities served by the Chicago "L" train network that does not directly border Chicago.
Hammond is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. Located along Lake Michigan, it is part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the only city in Indiana to border Chicago. It was first settled in the mid-19th century and it is one of the oldest cities of northern Lake County. As of the 2020 census, it is also the county's largest city by population, with 77,879 residents.
Graceland Cemetery is a large historic garden cemetery located in the north side community area of Uptown, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Established in 1860, its main entrance is at the intersection of Clark Street and Irving Park Road. Among the cemetery's 121 acres (49 ha) are the burial sites of several well-known Chicagoans.
Rosehill Cemetery is an American garden cemetery on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois, and at 350 acres (1.4 km2), is the largest cemetery in the City of Chicago. According to legend, the name "Rosehill" resulted from a City Clerk's error – the area was previously called "Roe's Hill", named for nearby farmer Hiram Roe. He refused to sell his land to the city until it was promised that the cemetery be named in his honor. It is located in the north east section of the Lincoln Square community area.
A circus train is a method of conveyance for circus troupes. One of the larger users of circus trains was the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (RBBX), a famous American circus formed when the Ringling Brothers Circus purchased the Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1907.
The Hammond Circus Train Wreck occurred on June 22, 1918, and was one of the worst train wrecks in U.S. history. Eighty-six people were reported to have died and another 127 were injured when a locomotive engineer fell asleep and ran his troop train into the rear of a circus train near Hammond, Indiana. The circus train held 400 performers and roustabouts of the Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus.
The Michigan Central Railroad was originally chartered in 1832 to establish rail service between Detroit, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan. The railroad later operated in the states of Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the United States and the province of Ontario in Canada. After about 1867 the railroad was controlled by the New York Central Railroad, which later became part of Penn Central and then Conrail. After the 1998 Conrail breakup, Norfolk Southern Railway now owns much of the former Michigan Central trackage.
The Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus was a circus that traveled across America in the early part of the 20th century. At its peak, it was the second-largest circus in America next to Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was based in Peru, Indiana.
Clyde Beatty was a famed animal trainer, zoo owner, and circus mogul. He joined Howe's Great London Circus in 1921 as a cage boy and spent the next four decades rising to fame as one of the most famous circus performers and animal trainers in the world. Through his career, the circus impresario owned several circuses, including his own Clyde Beatty Circus from 1945 to 1956.
Acacia Park Cemetery is located in Norwood Park Township, Cook County, Illinois, just outside Chicago. To its south, across Irving Park Road, is Irving Park Cemetery. On the north side, Acacia Park adjoins Westlawn Cemetery; the gates in the fence dividing Acacia Park and Westlawn are usually open, allowing visitors to pass freely between them.
Mount Carmel Cemetery is a Roman Catholic cemetery located in the Chicago suburb of Hillside, Illinois. Mount Carmel is an active cemetery, located within the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. It is located near the Eisenhower Expressway at Wolf and Roosevelt Roads. Another Catholic cemetery, Queen of Heaven, is located immediately south of Mount Carmel, across Roosevelt Road.
Lincoln Cemetery is a historically African American cemetery in Blue Island, Illinois, United States. The cemetery is about 112 acres (45 ha) with over 16,000 interments.
Paul Cornell was an American lawyer and Chicago real estate speculator who founded the Hyde Park Township that included most of what are now known as the south and far southeast sides of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. He turned the south side Lake Michigan lakefront area, especially the Hyde Park community area and neighboring Kenwood and Woodlawn neighborhoods, into a resort community that had its heyday from the 1850s through the early 20th century. He was also an urban planner who paved the way for and preserved many of the parks that are now in the Chicago Park District. Additionally, he was a successful entrepreneur with interests in manufacturing, cemeteries, and hotels.
Carl Hagenbeck was a German merchant of wild animals who supplied many European zoos, as well as P. T. Barnum. He created the modern zoo with animal enclosures without bars that were closer to their natural habitat. He was also an ethnography showman and a pioneer in displaying humans next to animals in human zoos. His use of human zoos is widely considered to be inhumane today, and was controversial even at the time. The transformation of the zoo architecture initiated by him is known as the Hagenbeck revolution. Hagenbeck founded Germany's most successful privately owned zoo, the Tierpark Hagenbeck, which moved to its present location in Hamburg's Stellingen district in 1907.
The Sells Floto Circus was a combination of the Floto Dog & Pony Show and the Sells Brothers Circus that toured with sideshow acts in the United States and Canada during the early 1900s.
Hyde Park Township is a former civil township in Cook County, Illinois, United States that existed as a separate municipality from 1861 until 1889 when it was annexed into the city of Chicago. Its borders are Pershing Road on the north, State Street on the west, Lake Michigan and the Indiana state line on the east, and 138th Street and the Calumet River on the south. This region comprised much of what is now known as the South Side of Chicago.
Al G. Barnes Circus was an American circus run by Alpheus George Barnes Stonehouse that operated from 1898 to 1938.
Benjamin E. Wallace was an American circus owner and Civil War veteran who founded the Hagenbeck–Wallace Circus, the second-largest circus in America.
The Circus in Winter is the debut novel/short story collection by American author Cathy Day published in 2004. It was a runner up in the inaugural Story Prize. and a finalist for the GLCA New Writers Award and the Great Lakes Book Award.