Speaker 1: You're listening to American Shadows, a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Grimm and Mild from Air and Manky.
Speaker 2: It sailed over the Empire State Building, moving at a
Speaker 2: stately sixty eight miles an hour. The people below looked
Speaker 2: up to watch it, and for those high above on
Speaker 2: board the Hindenburg, including eight year old Werner g Donor,
Speaker 2: the view was like nothing they had ever seen before.
Speaker 2: Werner and his family had boarded the airship on May
Speaker 2: third of nineteen thirty seven in Frankfurt, Germany, bound for
Speaker 2: New Jersey. It was the fastest way to get across
Speaker 2: the ocean and seemingly very safe. The vessel belonged to
Speaker 2: the world's first airline company, and it had an outstanding
Speaker 2: track record. The Hindenburg was an engineering marvel and a
Speaker 2: prized possession. Named propaganda machine of the Nazi Party. It
Speaker 2: flew with swastikas and was filled with all the luxuries
Speaker 2: expected by anyone who could afford a ticket, beautiful interiors,
Speaker 2: comfortable cabins, elegant meals, and even a fireproof smoking lounge.
Speaker 2: And although Werner and his siblings would have preferred the
Speaker 2: spacious decks and play spases of a traditional ocean liner.
Speaker 2: The airship's catwalks and views of ice filled landscapes were
Speaker 2: memories that he held on to for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life. To stay afloat, the ship swelled with over
Speaker 2: seven million cubic feet of hydrogen gas. To fly, it
Speaker 2: carried four diesel engines. The further it traveled, the more
Speaker 2: fuel it used, and the lighter it became. It was
Speaker 2: imperative for the ship to maintain its weight for fear
Speaker 2: of rising too high. A solution came in the form
Speaker 2: of clouds. The ship passed through them and collected rain water.
Speaker 2: For some on board, it felt close to heaven. Just
Speaker 2: after dawn on May sixth, Werner and his family prepared
Speaker 2: to land. They were expecting to be on the ground shortly,
Speaker 2: but the captain decided to bide his time. There was
Speaker 2: a storm coming in and he wanted to take extra precautions.
Speaker 2: By that evening, the ship was cleared for touchdown in Lakehurst,
Speaker 2: New Jersey. There, the ground crew waited to receive the
Speaker 2: ship's roping so it could be securely tied to a
Speaker 2: mooring mast. A light rain began to fall the wind blustered.
Speaker 2: The crew decided to go for a riskier high landing.
Speaker 2: They had passed the lines down from a higher altitude,
Speaker 2: but the ship was soon tied into the ground winches
Speaker 2: and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. For nearly a century, eyewitnesses, historians,
Speaker 2: and engineers have debated what happened next. What we do
Speaker 2: know is this, at seven twenty five PM, a spark
Speaker 2: created a flame that caused an explosion near the stern
Speaker 2: of the ship. Its hydrogen was released in a massive
Speaker 2: plume that would have been invisible save for the fireball.
Speaker 2: The fire sprinted across the airship's magnificent skin, voracious in
Speaker 2: its incineration, Hindenberg's keleton plummeted to the ground. The groundsman
Speaker 2: screamed and scattered under the heat and falling debris, and
Speaker 2: in just forty seconds from start to finish, the disaster
Speaker 2: was over, at least at the airfield. Thirty six people
Speaker 2: died that day, but that moment, one of the most
Speaker 2: stunning disasters of modern aviation, was captured in real time
Speaker 2: as a radio broadcast. Photographs and footage captured by the
Speaker 2: press were shared across the globe. What started out as
Speaker 2: a day of joy for Werner, his family, and the
Speaker 2: rest of those on board had taken a very dark turn.
Speaker 2: Though he would survive the accident, his sister would not.
Speaker 2: What could have been filed away as a happy memory
Speaker 2: for all aboard became a fundamentally life altering moment from
Speaker 2: which those who were there that day would never recover.
Speaker 2: This is an extreme example, but it's also true that
Speaker 2: for many of us, this is how it usually happens.
Speaker 2: I'm Lorn Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. Merrel Evans was
Speaker 2: a magician. His tool of choice, though, wasn't a magic wand,
Speaker 2: but a conductor's bow. For over twenty years, Murrell had
Speaker 2: been at the helm of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum
Speaker 2: Bailey Circus Orchestra. Alongside his colleagues in the pit and
Speaker 2: the ring. Merrell had made it his business to cultivate wonder.
Speaker 2: He shaped each circus's mood with his music and invisible
Speaker 2: stage set by the flick of his wrists and motion
Speaker 2: of his hands. He was a master of his craft,
Speaker 2: one of the best around. On July sixth of nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five, Murrell and his crew were sweating in their
Speaker 2: white and gold suits, though the day had just begun.
Speaker 2: The air was electric as visitors from all over Connecticut
Speaker 2: filed into the Big Top and filled the beaches of
Speaker 2: red and blue wooden chairs. They'd come for the matinee show.
Speaker 2: In a way, this was a homecoming, after all. P. T.
Speaker 2: Barnum had been born a few dozen miles away. Over
Speaker 2: the years, Hartford had become an internationally famous circus destination.
Speaker 2: To say that Circus Day was one of the biggest
Speaker 2: days of the year, it's no understatement. The circus trains
Speaker 2: were marvelous beasts, traveling the rails and bringing American audiences
Speaker 2: sites they could otherwise only dream about. The circus brought
Speaker 2: the outside world in, and for the price of a
Speaker 2: few pennies, that world could be theirs, if only for
Speaker 2: a few hours. Everyone's brows and backs were damp with sweat,
Speaker 2: which was certainly to be expected at the height of summer.
Speaker 2: Even still, the mood was buoyant, excitable. Even it seemed
Speaker 2: that the Allies might soon claim victory in Europe and
Speaker 2: the war's end might be eminent. The audience, largely made
Speaker 2: up of mothers, children, and great parents, couldn't wait to
Speaker 2: have their husbands, fathers and sons home again. It was
Speaker 2: the circus's responsibility to keep this atmosphere jubilant a heavy
Speaker 2: task given that this season had been a particularly trying one.
Speaker 2: It was plagued by personnel shortages, small fires, canceled performances,
Speaker 2: and a loss in profit. A large part of their
Speaker 2: labor force had gone off to fight. They couldn't travel
Speaker 2: as far as they once did. The rail lines were
Speaker 2: prioritized for the effort, but so significant was the circus's
Speaker 2: impact on American morale that President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave
Speaker 2: the Ringling Brothers train a special dispensation, and they were
Speaker 2: able to carry on. Still, they had rolled into town
Speaker 2: behind schedule, with little time to inspect the grounds. Before showtime,
Speaker 2: hundreds of workers had helped to erect the square mile
Speaker 2: of circus tent, under which it estimated eight thousand people
Speaker 2: took their seats. It was ringed with wagons and caged
Speaker 2: animal runways, and flew an American flag above it. All
Speaker 2: the stars and stripes hung limp that day in the
Speaker 2: summer's heat. A bit after two PM, the casting crew
Speaker 2: scuttled to their places, applied the last of their make up,
Speaker 2: got the animals into their chutes, and took their positions. Murle,
Speaker 2: directly across from the ten's entrance, took to his bandstand,
Speaker 2: preparing his twenty nine person ensemble to ready their instruments.
Speaker 2: The show was about to begin. When they began to play,
Speaker 2: the crowd erupted in delight. The show girls dazzled, clowns
Speaker 2: dashed about the ring and its streating parade of animals too.
Speaker 2: The big cats roared, and the elephants marched in time.
Speaker 2: It was a joyful cacophony. The Flying Welendas, a world
Speaker 2: famous family act of death defying acrobats, soon took their
Speaker 2: position high above the crowd. But from thirty feet in
Speaker 2: the air, they saw it, a small flame creeping up
Speaker 2: the southwest sidewall of the tent. Murle soon saw it too.
Speaker 2: Fires and circus tents weren't uncommon. He knew that, in fact,
Speaker 2: there was a whole crew of people known as bucket men,
Speaker 2: whose entire job it was to watch for little eruptions
Speaker 2: of flame. After all, their workplace was highly flammable. It
Speaker 2: was filled with dry grass, sawdust, canvas, and a crowd
Speaker 2: fond of cigarettes. But there was something about this flame
Speaker 2: that looked just wrong. It had begun to climb high
Speaker 2: and fast, licking up the wall with a fiery ferocity
Speaker 2: that no bucket man or men would be able to snuff.
Speaker 2: Murle saw it rise behind the patrons, who seemed to
Speaker 2: be oblivious to what was taking place just beyond their seats.
Speaker 2: Merle sounded the alarm. He ordered his band to play
Speaker 2: the Stars and Stripes Forever, the universal circus signal for
Speaker 2: impending disaster. As their brass blairs filled the tent, some
Speaker 2: people in the audience mistook it for another patriotic display.
Speaker 2: They hummed along, some pretended to march in place as
Speaker 2: Some thought this was all part of the act. Others
Speaker 2: thought there wasn't much to worry about and that it
Speaker 2: would soon be under control. But below them, the circus
Speaker 2: personnel had broken form and were preparing for chaos. Their
Speaker 2: eyes were locked, and the flames shot upward. The ingredients
Speaker 2: for an inferno are simple oxygen, heat, and fuel. It's
Speaker 2: a devastating mix. The fourth factor that makes the sum
Speaker 2: of these parts so deadly is speed. What people don't
Speaker 2: understand until it's too late is how quickly fire can spread,
Speaker 2: and how truly helpless we are in the face of
Speaker 2: this primal element. Humanity was borne from fire, and fire
Speaker 2: can very quickly snuff us out. For example, a fire
Speaker 2: can heat a two story home up to five hundred
Speaker 2: degrees three minutes from inception. In just under four minutes,
Speaker 2: the room where the fire originated might reach fourteen hundred degrees.
Speaker 2: And it's in this superheated, blistering flash over moment where
Speaker 2: almost everything present has released noxious flammable gases that everything
Speaker 2: within the fire's reach will burst into flames. It's the heat,
Speaker 2: gas and smoke inhalation that often claim lives before the
Speaker 2: inferno comes. Scientists believe that this is how most people
Speaker 2: died of Pompeii, not from being engulfed in flames, but
Speaker 2: due to a superheated tidal wave of boiling hot gas.
Speaker 2: So when we talk about the chance to escape a fire,
Speaker 2: we're talking about a mere window of seconds. It was
Speaker 2: in this moment at the Hartford Circus, when the wallendas
Speaker 2: spotted the flames licking when Murrel signaled his band to play,
Speaker 2: that the audience caught on. Someone in the stands shouted
Speaker 2: one of the most dangerous words to yell in a
Speaker 2: crowded space fire. The circus probably hoped for a swift
Speaker 2: and calm evacuation, but panic is often more powerful than hope.
Speaker 2: People moved calmly at first, aided by the circus ushers,
Speaker 2: but as the flames moved from a crawl to a sprint,
Speaker 2: the crowd decided that they had to do the same.
Speaker 2: The big top filled with shouts and screams and the
Speaker 2: stampede of feet down the risers, the clatter of chairs
Speaker 2: being knocked over, and the thud of people tripping down.
Speaker 2: Eight thousand people needed to make it out alive. The
Speaker 2: bucket men were out of their depth. It was clear
Speaker 2: that water was needed, but to the horror of the
Speaker 2: circus crew, their tent was set up too far from
Speaker 2: municipal water sources. The hoses that had brought had the
Speaker 2: wrong fittings and wouldn't attach, and the water wagons outfitted
Speaker 2: for small fires were no match. The circus crew took
Speaker 2: to their stations and fought however they could. They gathered
Speaker 2: the animals and brought them to safety, and worked to
Speaker 2: guide the panicked audience as well. Whoever had a bucket
Speaker 2: within reach grabbed it, but soon realized to the futility
Speaker 2: of the effort. They watched as the canvas tent coated
Speaker 2: in over six thousand pounds of paraffin and gasoline, a
Speaker 2: favorite mixture for waterproofing, turned into a fiery wall, climbing
Speaker 2: to a height of one hundred feet. Within three minutes,
Speaker 2: the flames had reached the ceiling, and then the paraffin
Speaker 2: began to melt, casting down flames onto the crowd below.
Speaker 2: Those who made it to the ground were horrified to
Speaker 2: find most of the eight small exits blocked by steel
Speaker 2: animal shoots. Small children were pushed over as adults tried
Speaker 2: to climb the superheated metal. Others were trapped in the pushing,
Speaker 2: writhing mass of people, pivoting and trying to make escapes
Speaker 2: in other directions. When some cut the canvas and slipped
Speaker 2: out through the slits. At the four minute mark, the
Speaker 2: first fire alarm rang at the firehouse just half a
Speaker 2: mile away. In this bedlam merl and his troop kept
Speaker 2: their positions and continued to play. This was his duty,
Speaker 2: this was his destiny, his proudest posting the most important
Speaker 2: moment of his career. The show would go on until
Speaker 2: it couldn't. He would stay the course and carry his
Speaker 2: circus through to the very end. The tension ropes began
Speaker 2: to catch fire and snap. One by one, the big top.
Speaker 2: Supporting poles crashed to the ground, buckling the canvas. Each
Speaker 2: lumbering fall kicked up a heated blast, singing the skin
Speaker 2: of those still inside. The buckling canvas fanned the flames
Speaker 2: with more oxygen. At about the five minute mark, Merle
Speaker 2: ordered his band to evacuate. His timing was impeccable. It
Speaker 2: was reported that just moments after they left the band stand,
Speaker 2: it was crushed by a falling tent pole. For three
Speaker 2: more minutes, the flames roared into the sky, filling it
Speaker 2: with smoke and ash. The temperature inside the tent climbed
Speaker 2: and would continue to climb to an estimated sixteen hundred
Speaker 2: degrees hot enough to melt metal in fuse bodies. All
Speaker 2: the fire crew could do was hose down the blistered
Speaker 2: and blackened survivors, and then, as quickly as it had started,
Speaker 2: it was over. At eight minutes, the fire had won
Speaker 2: The Big Top, a magnificent canvas the size of two
Speaker 2: football fields and weighing nineteen tons, collapsed in on itself.
Speaker 2: In doing so, it purged its belly of superheated air,
Speaker 2: singing the grass, trees and skin in its immediate orbit,
Speaker 2: the scream stopped. There was utter silence from the crowd.
Speaker 2: Merle's band played on. It didn't take long for the
Speaker 2: whispers to begin and rumors to fly. It was almost immediate.
Speaker 2: The fire had no sooner eaten itself alive and stuffed
Speaker 2: itself out. The people began to talk. Was it arson?
Speaker 2: Was its sabotage? Could it really have been an accident?
Speaker 2: Radio announcers broadcasted news of the tragedy. The phone lines
Speaker 2: jammed with people from neighboring communities calling for word about
Speaker 2: their loved ones. Within the hour, hundreds of volunteers had
Speaker 2: descended on to the fair grounds, and people brought their
Speaker 2: personal vehicles, and small businesses brought theirs. Makeshift stretchers were
Speaker 2: created to ferry the injured. It was soon clear that
Speaker 2: the city's emergency departments were about to be overrun. In
Speaker 2: the haze of soot and charred flesh, people searched in
Speaker 2: panic for their missing. The families had been split up
Speaker 2: in the tumult, the crowd forcing clasped hands apart, and
Speaker 2: smoke obscuring people's vision. Some families were reunited, some were
Speaker 2: separated forever. The grounds were covered with bodies in various
Speaker 2: states of distress. Those with life left in them were
Speaker 2: promptly taken away. Those who perished were marked and taken
Speaker 2: in the opposite direction. Some victims were sent to Hartford Hospital.
Speaker 2: Lost children were sent to a local school. The State
Speaker 2: Armory became the temporary morgue. A large, cold building, the
Speaker 2: Armory was mostly quiet as survivors and extended family members
Speaker 2: snaked through its doors and shuffled down its hallways, trying
Speaker 2: to identify bodies that were often charred beyond recognition. They
Speaker 2: were laid out on simple cots and covered with thin blankets.
Speaker 2: Shell shock blanketed the city. As the smoke and ashes settled.
Speaker 2: By nightfall, only two dozen victims had been identified, though
Speaker 2: over a hundred had perished. It was quickly realized that
Speaker 2: no circus folks had died in the blaze. If these
Speaker 2: survivors held on to any guilt, the police weren't interested
Speaker 2: in hearing about it. These traveling heroes, these entertainers, who
Speaker 2: were expected to bring so much joy, had dramatically fallen
Speaker 2: from grace. They were single hands blamed for bringing this
Speaker 2: unthinkable tragedy. Fires are notoriously hard to investigate. Even more
Speaker 2: so when the scene of one hasn't been secured. Arson
Speaker 2: convictions are often founded on circumstantial evidence and good storytelling
Speaker 2: as opposed to hard science. So though the circus employees
Speaker 2: were rounded up for questioning, a few had little more
Speaker 2: than a guess as to how the blaze started. The
Speaker 2: things that they were about to get in trouble for
Speaker 2: were the safety shortcomings and cut corners that allowed this
Speaker 2: tragedy to happen. All in all, one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: eight people died in the Hartford Circus fire. It was
Speaker 2: nothing short of a miracle that the death poll wasn't
Speaker 2: higher on that fateful summer day. In the end, all
Speaker 2: but six victims were identified. One of these unknowns gripped
Speaker 2: the spirits of Hartford citizens more than the others. She
Speaker 2: was a little girl, probably no more than eight years old,
Speaker 2: who looked like she had fallen into a peaceful, restle
Speaker 2: full sleep. Where some had been disfigured in the blaze,
Speaker 2: sometimes beyond hope of recognition, she had not. Her photos
Speaker 2: splashed across the papers, calling for anyone who might know her,
Speaker 2: but they never came. She became known as little Miss
Speaker 2: fifteen sixty five. The number assigned to her at the
Speaker 2: Armory Morgue. Somewhere out there, her family was missing her.
Speaker 2: For a body so well preserved, no one could understand
Speaker 2: why no one recognized her. There were a few theories.
Speaker 2: Perhaps her family had perished, maybe she was visiting relatives
Speaker 2: and no one knew to look for her. Maybe her
Speaker 2: family members were still in medically induced comas, or perhaps
Speaker 2: in a haze of grief at the morgue, her own
Speaker 2: family had identified another lost child's body as their own
Speaker 2: and left her behind. The week prior, the city had
Speaker 2: turned out for the circus train, But what drew them
Speaker 2: to the streets on July tenth was a funeral procession.
Speaker 2: For this circus fires unidentified victims. Mourners took to the
Speaker 2: streets as hearses made their way from Hartford Hospital to
Speaker 2: Hartford City Hall and then to the graveyard. Hartford was
Speaker 2: no longer filled with the jubilant sound of the circus
Speaker 2: calliope nor the Big Brass band. Now the air was
Speaker 2: filled with funeral dirges. Five of the circus's executives were
Speaker 2: charged and booked for ten counts of involuntary manslaughter. They
Speaker 2: became defendants in multiple lawsuits found to be negligent. They
Speaker 2: even served short jail sentences for their part. There was
Speaker 2: no fighting the charges, only somber acceptance of their roles
Speaker 2: in this mass tragedy. Upon investigation, it was soon clear
Speaker 2: where things had gone awry. They hadn't gotten proper clearance
Speaker 2: from the fire department. The fire extinguishers were in storage
Speaker 2: and inaccessible. The circus immediately agreed to pay out almost
Speaker 2: five million dollars in compensations to the victims and their families.
Speaker 2: To this day, the cause of the fire has never
Speaker 2: been fully determined, but some investigators believe it was an
Speaker 2: errant cigarette. Other historians are convinced it was indeed arson.
Speaker 2: At one point, a disgruntled circus employee with a history
Speaker 2: of arson charges copped to setting the tent to blaze,
Speaker 2: but his confession was later recanted, though he did end
Speaker 2: up back in jail on an unrelated arson charge. To
Speaker 2: this day, some believe this was the true cause. The
Speaker 2: intervening years were not particularly kind to the circus. Both
Speaker 2: the city of Hartford and the troop tried to heal
Speaker 2: from this tragedy, but its memory is still close at
Speaker 2: hand today. A memorial for the fire sits behind an
Speaker 2: elementary school, a large circular monument situated in the footprint
Speaker 2: of the Big Tops Center. On April thirtieth of twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: the Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey Circus made a
Speaker 2: pilgrimage back to Hartford. This was their farewell tour, and
Speaker 2: this city was their last stop. A lot had changed
Speaker 2: in the intervening years, the safety measures and fire codes,
Speaker 2: technological innovations, and world events. Time continued to march on.
Speaker 2: But there under the Big Top the Flying Welenda's Acrobat
Speaker 2: family found themselves again, carrying on a legacy that had
Speaker 2: proven itself to be so colorful and so dark and
Speaker 2: so resilient. Returning to the scene of the crime, paying
Speaker 2: their respects to the lives lost and families forever altered,
Speaker 2: the show went on. There's more to this story. Stick
Speaker 2: around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.
Speaker 2: It's true that Joseph Figlock never saw it coming, but
Speaker 2: the baby probably didn't either. Joseph was no stranger to
Speaker 2: a hard day's work, but it's difficult to say whether
Speaker 2: we can call him a lucky man. He had worked
Speaker 2: all of his life, having immigrated to the United States
Speaker 2: with his family when he was just a toddler. By
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty seven, he called Detroit, Michigan, his home and
Speaker 2: was employed as a street sweeper with the Department of
Speaker 2: Public Works. He was going about his business one day
Speaker 2: when it came down from above, well, when she came
Speaker 2: down from above, out of a four story window, fell
Speaker 2: a small girl, landing smack on top of Joseph. He
Speaker 2: broke her landing, and though they were both injured, they
Speaker 2: didn't break too much else. Reports of children falling from
Speaker 2: buildings were both newsworthy and not terribly uncommon in the
Speaker 2: earlier parts of the twentieth century. These days, it's estimated
Speaker 2: that each year about four thousand children ten years of
Speaker 2: age and under sea hospital treatment for window falls. Remarkably,
Speaker 2: only about twelve of those will die. And if you
Speaker 2: think about all of the windows in a city that
Speaker 2: might exist within arm's reach of a toddler, the math
Speaker 2: suddenly seems surprisingly in the favor of small children. We
Speaker 2: can think of Joseph as lucky that day, as was
Speaker 2: the little girl. But this is where the story takes
Speaker 2: a step away from the realm of coincidence and into
Speaker 2: the area of strange happenstance. About a year later, on
Speaker 2: September twenty seventh of nineteen thirty eight, Joseph found himself
Speaker 2: sweeping another Detroit alley, just another morning on the job.
Speaker 2: At around ten a m. The earth bound two year
Speaker 2: old Glenn Thomas fell from his home four floors above,
Speaker 2: crashing into Joseph and fracturing Glen's own thigh, arm, shoulder,
Speaker 2: and skull in the process, but the baby did survive.
Speaker 2: With that, Joseph unwittingly helped to avert disaster again, accidentally
Speaker 2: being at the right place at the right time and
Speaker 2: enabling these children to live on. They say lightning never
Speaker 2: strikes the same place twice, but it seems babies sometimes might.
Speaker 1: American Shadows as hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Robin miniterter, researched by Robin Minitter and Taylor Haggardorn,
Speaker 1: and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive
Speaker 1: producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn
Speaker 1: more about the show, visit Grimminmile dot com. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts