Remembering the Hartford Circus Fire

City fire officials and Mayor Pedro Segarra led a ceremony Friday to mark the 68th anniversary of the Hartford Circus Fire, which killed 168 people and injured an estimated 700. The ceremony was held at the memorial created in 2006 on the site of the fire, behind the Behind Fred D. Wish Elementary School on Barbour Street. It was a very hot and sunny day--a lot like that awful day on July 6, 1944. For more on the fire, go to www.hartfordhistory.net/circusfire.html.

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50th anniversary of the other Hartford fire

If Americans associate Hartford with any historical event, it’s probably the circus fire of 1944. But last week marked the 50th anniversary of another deadly Hartford fire that had far-ranging effects on the rest of the country. On December 8, 1961, flames raced through a wing on the ninth floor of Hartford Hospital, leaving 16 dead. The anniversary provided the occasion for a ceremony at the hospital and look-backs by the local news media. Hartford Courant Staff Writer William Weir wrote an especially vivid article, with great quotes from hospital staff who were there that day.

Investigators later blamed the fire on a smoldering cigarette that had been tossed into a trash chute, which ran through all 13 floors of the hospital. When someone opened a door somewhere along the chute's pathway, it provided the oxygen for a fireball that blew through the chute's ninth-floor door. Weir explains why the fire changed hospital safety throughout the country:

As a result of the 1961 fire, the National Fire Protection Association made changes in its 1963 Life Safety Code for hospitals, including requiring sprinklers for trash chutes, requiring that all barriers be built for one-hour fire resistance and requiring that all draperies and curtains have fire-resistant coatings.

Television station WTIC-TV, Channel 3, shot some dramatic footage that day, as the fire raged and rescuers worked frantically. Its successor station, Eyewitness News 3 (WFSB), pulled some of it from the vaults. The station also posted this footage, without audio.

NBC Connecticut (WVIT) had nice video from the hospital's remembrance ceremony and interviews with rescuers and hospital staff.

Irene brings back memories of Hartford's hurricane past

The looming of Hurricane Irene is sending people back to the archives for information and pictures on similar events in Hartford history. The State Library, for instance, has kindly posted its photos of the 1938 hurricane. Meanwhile, WTNH-TV (News 8) state Capitol reporter Mark Davis has written about the 1936 floods. Hartford had always been prone to flooding, but it was these two events that finally led to construction of the current dikes along the Connecticut River and the underground piping of the Hog River, which flowed through downtown and out into the Connecticut. That work, by the way, was federally funded.

For some perspective on just how high the river rose in '36 and '38, here's a photo I took a couple of years ago at Riverside Park, where they have plaques indicating the high-water marks for major floods.

Hartford's darkest day remembered

Tuesday is the 66th anniversary of the Hartford circus fire, which killed 168 people and injured nearly 500.

The Mark Twain House and Museum will mark the anniversary by hosting a discussion among authors who've written about the fire, including novelist Mary-Ann Tirone Smith ("Masters of Illusion"), poet Paul Janeczko ("Worlds Afire"), and investigators Don Massey and Rick Davey ("A Matter of Degree: The Hartford Circus Fire and the Mystery of Little Miss 1565.") Kathy Maher, executive director of the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, will serve as moderator.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. with a screening of the Connecticut Public Television documentary on the fire. The panel discussion, entitled "Telling a Tragic Tale: Writers on the Hartford Circus Fire," follows at 7:30 p.m. Afterward, the authors will sign copies of their books, and visitors can view a collection of artifacts that will be on display in the Great Hall of the museum through July.

Admission is free. The Mark Twain House Museum is located at 351 Farmington Avenue. You'll find directions and a map here.

On Saturday morning, Cedar Hill Cemetery will hold its own event, including presentations from Pat Weibust, who attended the circus the day of the fire, and playwright Anne Pié, whose "Front Street" deals with the fire's impact on a local immigrant family. Following the presentations, there will be a tour of the graves of some of the people who lost their lives in the fire.

Cedar Hill Cemetery is located at 453 Fairfield Avenue, in the city's South End. (Map)