Woodlawn Cemetery Showman's Rest

Sure, joining the circus probably seemed like a fun thing to do, especially back in the early 20th century, when circuses were at the peak of their popularity. But, as cool as it seemed, the life of a circus performer is fraught with danger at basically every turn. Wild animals and dangerous stunts, were just a part of every day life... and that's not even considering the task of moving all of this insanity from one town to the next. Things could (and did) go wrong quite often for the circuses-- the mass grave at Showman's Rest in Illinois's Woodlawn Cemetery is proof. But how did a mass grave of circus workers wind up in Illinois? It's actually pretty sad-- on June 22, 1918, a troop train's conductor fell asleep at the wheel and plowed into the circus performer's train in nearby Ivanhoe, Indiana, causing the kerosene lamps in the sleeper cars to ignite. It became known as the "Hammond circus train wreck" and it killed somewhere between 56 and 86 employees of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Company-- even more were injured. The Showman's League of America (led by Buffalo Bill Cody) had just recently purchased a plot of land inside Woodlawn Cemetery to set aside for their members, and so that's where many of the Hagenbeck-Wallace performers were interred.   Many of the graves are unmarked, since some were burned beyond recognition, and other graves only have the circus identities inscribed on them-- the old cliche about running away from a bad past to start a new life by joining the circus has some truth to it after all. At Showman's Rest, keep your eyes peeled for the graves of "Smiley", "Baldy", and "4 Horse Driver", among other legends of the day, like Arthur Dierckx and Max Nietzborn of the Dierckx Brothers strongman act and acrobat Jennie Ward Todd. Also note the elephant statues-- their trunks are lowered in mourning. If you're visiting at night, pay attention; some claim to hear the sounds of ghostly elephants (although no elephants died in the crash, and that the admittedly-elephantless Brookfield Zoo is super close by). If all that is getting you down, the ending isn't all bad. Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey's, major competitors of Hagenbeck-Wallace, lent the battered performers enough equipment to finish out a few more shows, and the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus was acquired by another, giving them the stability they needed. -Roadtrippers Showmen's Rest in Forest Park, Illinois, is a 750 plot section of Woodlawn Cemetery where a mass grave where 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 Ivanhoe, 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). One is marked "Smiley," another "Baldy," and "4 Horse Driver." 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.