New-York tribune., 1918-06-23
Wallace Hagenback Cars
Crushed in Rear-En nd
Collision Near Gary
Many Performers
Among the Victims
Fire Follows Wreck and
Passengers Are Burned
to Death in Debris

GARY, Ind, June o. Sixty per-
sons are known to be dead and 129
are in hospitals in Gary and Hammond
tonight, as a result of the rear-end
collision at dawn to-day between an
equipment train and a Wallace Hagen
back circus train on the Michigan Cen
trail Railroad, five miles west of Gary.
Virtually all the victims were members
of the circus.
Thirty-eight bodies, all except one
charred beyond recognition, have been
placed in Gary undertaking establish
ments tonight Twenty-Five bodies
have been taken to Hammond. Iden-
was not attempted to-day. Those who
died of injuries in hospitals were
known. but the efforts of giving names
to the burned mutilated bits of hu-
manity taken from the wreck were re-
served for tomorrow. The identified
dead:
Earl Michel Berry, Schenectady,
N. Y, Mrs. Veronica Conners, Mrs Jo-
seph Coyle and two sons, Cincinnati;
Miss Louise Cottrell, London, England;
John Collins, New Haven; Mr.. and Mrs.
u. Cattanack, Chicago; Arthur Derrick,
Erickton, Md; Joseph Derrick, Max
Derrick, Miss Jewell, Fred Ledgett, Mrs.
Hattie McCree, Henry Miller, Miss
Louise Powell, Rose Roseland, John
Rooney, Mrs. Jennie Todd, Blooming
ton, ILL.,, and Fred Whipple, Michigan
City, Ind.
Three Coaches Demolished
The empty troop train. travelling
down a straight stretch of track, to-
tally demolished three of the f1imsy
circus coaches and badly damaged a
fourth.
According to reports to local author
tiles, the circus train which carried
four sleepers, five stock cars, fifteen
: nat cars and a caboose, pulled part way
/ into switch, and stalled there on ac-
count of a hot box. The hagman went
back on the main track and set fuses
as a warning of danger.
The circus train was in this position
when the equipment train plowed into
the sleepers, reducing them to a pile
of tangled steel and timbers. Fire
caused by the gas lighting system of
the circus train, started almost imme-
diately, and when the rescuers reached
the scene the entire wreckage was in
flames.
Clowns, bareback riders trapeze per-
formers and acrobats, many of them
veterans in the circus world, perished
IN the first great crash. Other VIC
Tins were suffocated and burned.
Attempts of the Gary Fire Depart
ment to curb the flames and make nos
sible quick access to the imprisoned
! victims were unsuccessful. because of
lack OF water supply in that outlying
district. Survivors struggled about the
wreck, screaming for relatives or
friends, and only force prevented two
or three men from rushing into the
blazing wreckage.
Many Pitiful Scenes
Hours after the crash bodies. charred
black, were still being recovered as the
derricks of wrecking trains thinned ont
the pile Of debris
There were numerous pitiful scenes
at the wreck and later in the hospitals.
Joe Coyle, clown, wept bitterly as he
lay on stretcher and told how his
wife and two babies had joined him
only recently after months of absence.
and how all three had been crushed to
death at his very side.
The kidoies had been so glad to see
their daddy" he said. 81 wish l could
have died with them"
capped from the train to the woods
south of the wreck caused residents
of that thinly populated district to take
precautions. Circus authorities ex-
planned that no wild animals were on
the train. They also discredited re-
ports that one circus woman, demcnted.
had evaded the doctors and raced off
into the woods, in her night clothing.
Officers Of the circus made futile at
tempts during the day to obtain more
complete casualty lists. Work of re-
shattered circus coaches, in further
search of bodies, continued tonight
There was lack of accurate in
formation concerning the whereabouts
of AL Sargent, engineer, and Emil
Klauss, fireman, who piloted the train
of empty troop cars that cut its way
through the circus train.
In railroad circles there was gen
orally accepted report that Sargent had
SoHe 70 MS NOME III hdldulaZOO, MICH,
and that KLAUS was under arrest at his
home in Michigan City, Ind.
Alonzo K. Sargent, engineer of the
train Of empty troop cars, was arrested
in Kalamazoo, Mich, tonight on an or
der from this city, charged with man
slaughter. Sargent was about to board
train for his home in Jackson when
he was arrested Emil Klauss, the fire
man. was arrested at his home in Mich
igan City, Ind.
Eirex1,nz, Seized IN