Showman's Rest

In forest park, Illinois, there is a rather large cemetery known as Woodlawn cemetery. By looking at the place you would think it's just like any other cemetery, but it's far more than that. Tragedy, adversity and sorrow are only some of the words used to describe the events that happened here on June 22nd 1918.

The Illinois town or village as it's know as, is in fact rather strange in itself, seeing as the ratio of people who are dead outranks those who are alive by a staggering ratio of 30-to-1. The village actually at one point had the name of "Village of Cemeteries" because of the amount of Cemeteries that forest park has in it.

So on June 22nd, a train containing the circus know as the Hagenback-Wallace circus was on its way to Indiana for one of their many performances while on tour, when an issue occured. The train started to have some mechanical problems and the conductor Karena decision to stop near Hessville, Indiana to take a look and see what exactly the issue was.

This was where tragedy struck, as another train that ignored the warning lights of the stopped train, came crashing head first into it, causing a massive amount of damage and a fire them erupted from the collision.

The sounds of the crash could be heard from a distance. People who remember hearing it said that the most terrifying part of it all wasn't the deafening sound of the collision, but it was the sound of the animals screeching in pain as the fire burnt through and left nothing more than just rubble. 85  circus performers in total had lost their lives that day.

Luckily or perhaps more coincidentally, the showman's league of America had in 1913, purchased 750 acres in the Woodlawn Cemetery so that the women and men of the circus could have a place to be buried when they passed away, but no one thought those graves would be filled so soon.

Another sad part of this unfortunate story was that 54 out of the 85 casualties were unable to be identified. They have markers on their gravesite that are just marked "Unknown Male" or "Unknown Female". Those that could be identified were buried and marked by their stage name only as many within the circus didn't know the real names of the other performers. One was labelled "Baldy" for example.

It was mainly elephants that were on board the train with the rest of the animals being mostly made-up of farm birds. The animals were said to be not given a burial at all, instead just disposed of in the easiest and quickest way possible. For this reason it is said the the birth of the haunting of the cemetery exists.

Late at night when there is a stillness about the place, there is said to be the sound of the cries of the burning Elephants, along with people even reporting to spot the ghostly figures roaming the land. To this day remain the reports but no one can ever capture the cries or visual on camera. 

If you ever go to the resting place of the showmen, then you will see a statue of an elephant next to the burial places. This statue is thought to hold the spirits of the large mammals that are waiting to be seen given a proper burial to be set free.

Whatever you believe, no one can underestimate the tragedy that occured on June 22nd that year, but as time went on it has become etched more into the back of people's minds. The problem here is that although this happened many years ago, the real tragedy is said to continue to this day.......