NamUs Mising Persons -- Five Unidentified from 1944 Hartford Circus Fire

By: Shane Lambert

Original Time of Writing: December 11th, 2020

The Hartford Circus Fire was a fire disaster that occurred during the WWII years when, in July of 1944, a small fire broke out at a live circus show. The tent that housed the circus had a coating on it that was meant to waterproof it. One side effect of that was that the tent was hardly fire retardant. In fact, it was a very flammable material as were many of the fixtures used to house the show.

What resulted when a small fire broke out, which may have been due to arson or from a discarded cigarette, was a quickly spreading fire that led to immediate panic among thousands of attendees and performers. Most of these attendees escaped to safety but a combination of chaos, trampling, asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, and burning to death killed 167 people and injured hundreds and hundreds more. The headline below, which is taken from journalism from the day after the fire, states 139 were dead but this was just the preliminary number.

Fri, Jul 7, 1944 – 1 · Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut) · Newspapers.com

Not all of the victims that died in this tragedy were identified. In fact, there was a famous missing person's case that resulted from this fire. A young girl, who was trampled to death in the panic, went unnamed for several decades. Once known as Little Miss 1565, she was believed to have been Eleanor Emily Cook.

Sun, Jun 23, 1991 – 7 · The Journal Times (Racine, Wisconsin) · Newspapers.com

At least five people remain unidentified at the time of writing. They are #UP59498, #UP59500,  #UP59502, #UP59503, and #UP59504. If you are looking at a missing person's case with a lead to points to the Hartford, Connecticut area on or in the days leading up to July 6th, 1944, then keep these Jane and John Does in mind. If you are interested in a decent video that reviews the fire, then I watched a good one on Youtube and have it embedded below: