Haunted by a circus that turned deadly

July 6, 1944 dawned warm and got steadily hotter. It was not only wartime but a month after the invasion of Normandy. Good news was about as scarce as ration stamps for new shoes. So when the circus came to Hartford, glee came with it. It was carried on the shoulders of 1,600 performers; it could not be contained by the massive tent that was the area of two football fields and measured 48 feet high.

More than 6,000 giddy circus fans poured into that tent for the matinee show. Most were women and children, because it was a workday and it was wartime. They were too excited to be bothered by the heat. They were oblivious to the sealant used to waterproof the tent - a mixture of 6,000 gallons of gasoline and 1,800 pounds of melted paraffin, a formula that had been used for decades.

It was just after the first act, featuring the wild animals and their trainer, that some fans spotted the orange ball of flaming crawling up the southwest wall of the tent. A few later said they thought it was part of a clown act, but not for long. The flames drank in the gasoline and paraffin and in seconds turned the tent into a deadly inferno. Many were trampled in their race for survival; most were burned. Sixty-seven of the victims were children under the age of 15, including an unidentified little girl, known for more than 40 years as Miss 1565. The official death toll was 168; when the charred and partial body of an infant disposed of in a hospital's incinerator is counted, the number reaches 169.

It was the worst circus fire in U.S. history, and Hartford could not escape its grip. The image of a little blonde girl -- her body unclaimed even though it was unscathed by fire -- haunted the world for decades. She came to symbolize all that was tragic and unfair about that day. It was not until 1991 that a fire investigator born four years after the fire solved her mystery, then replaced it with one more sinister. Was the deadliest disaster in Connecticut's history also one of its most heinous crimes?

By Lynne Tuohy

The story of the 1944 Hartford circus fire from Northeast magazine, July 7, 1991