River Falls, Wisconsin

Lightning Strikes Circus Tent

June 21, 1893

CIRCUS DISASTER

Lightening Strikes Ringling's Circus Tent, Killing Several Persons.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., June 21. --- A Tribune special from River Falls, Wis., says: At 4 o'clock this afternoon the large circus tent of Ringling Brothers was struck by lightning while crowded with people killing seven and injuring more than twenty. The killed are:
CLARK MAPES.
EUGENE REYNOLDS.
J. A. CLENDENNING, town clerk of Oak Grove and his SON.
O. A. DEANS.
O. P. WIGGINS, 14 years old.
CURT ALDRICHS, 12 year old boy and an UNKNOWN BOY.

The names of the injured cannot be obtained as they were taken away by their friends. The performance was not quite over, but the terrible storm caused the immense throng to crowd out of the tent. While the people were passing out the tent was struck twice by lightning, with the above result. Fire started, but was extinguished.

MRS. CLENDENNING and another son are serisusly [sic] injured. PATRICK COLLINS, a farmer, unmarried, is seriously injured, and is at the Gladstone hotel, and two strangers supposed to be railroad graders are also at the hotel badly injured.

JAY E. LOUCKS, proprietor of the Gladstone hotel, was passing through the tent with his wife, three nieces and one child, when the shock came.

The bodies of the dead were taken to the village engine house. Some of the bodies were badly scorched, but the majority presented no external evidence of the shock. Death was absolutely instantaneous in all cases except that of young DEAN. Six men carried the paralyzed form of a young man named LEWIS ROSSOIS, whose face and breast were terribly burned and whose lower extremities were paralyzed. At a late hour he had recovered consciousness and was receiving every care from a nurse. With great dificulty [sic] he managed to tell that he was a laboring man and that his relatives live near Spring Valley, Minn. While he is seriously burned and his lower limbs at present benumed [sic], he is not fatally injured.

Another badly injured young man is WILLIAM B. L. HORME, aged 18, whose parents live at Norman, Okla. MRS. CLENDENNING has recovered consciousness but the fact of her husband and sons death has been kept from her. She thinks they have gone home to attend to the chores. She will receive a sad awakening tomorrow. None of the circus people were injured.

Aspen Weekly Times Colorado 1893-06-24

Submitted & transcribed by Stu Beitler  Thank you, Stu!

An Awful Scene. 

River Falls, Wis, June 23.-- A terrific thunderstorm raged in this vicinity between 3 and 4 o'clock Wednesday afternoon. Rain fell in sheets and great floods of water formed in the streets almost in an instant.  Ringling's circus was giving a performance in the edge of a grove about a quarter of a mile from the center of the town.  The show proper had just been concluded, and as the concert was about to begin a number of people were making their way through the menagerie tent when a terrific bolt of lightning struck one of the center poles of the menagerie tent and more than fifty people were prostrated.  Seven were killed instantly, a few more were badly injured and the balance are regaining the use of their limbs, which had been temporarily paralyzed by the shock. An elephant and forty horses were knocked down by the shock.  The list of dead and most seriously injured is as follows:

The victims.

Dead --

O. A. Dean,

J. A. Glendenning,

Leslie Glendenning,

Clark Mapes,

Eugene Reynolds,

Charles Smith,

4-year-old son of Curtis Aldridge

Seriously Injured --

Patrick Collins,

Mrs. J. A. Glendenning and son,

W. B. L. Horne,

Lewis Rosses

two unknown men

Crowd Panic Stricken.  The crowd became panic-stricken when they learned the extent of the fatality.  Men and women surged toward the scene, and it was only by the exercise of rare presence of mind on the part of Messrs. Ringling and their employes that a most serious stampede was averted.  The Ringlings did everything possible to alleviated the sufferings of the injured.  Canvasmen, stakedrivers and animal attendants vied with one another in their attentions to the wounded.

Stretched on the ground were four men and three boys dead, and as soon as anything like order could be restored they were identified and the remains removed.

The remains of the dead were taken to the village engine house, where some distressing scenes were enacted.  Some of the bodies were badly scorched, but the majority presented no external evidence of the shock.  Death was instantaneous in all cases except that of young Dean, who lived a few minutes.  Citizens turned out in force to help the men and boys who had been shocked.  The attendants on the injured slapped their hands and shook them to restore animation, while the faces of the victims bore a frightened look.

One of the saddest things in connection with this calamity is the fact that the young lad Smith, who was killed, had a blind father and a crippled mother, and the little fellow was his father's guide wherever the latter went.

Daily Citizen, Iowa City, Iowa, 23 June 1893

LIGHTNING IN A CIRCUS

Several Killed in a Tent at Riverfalls, Wis.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon lightning struck the large circus tent of Ringling Brothers, at Riverfalls, Wis., which was crowded with people, instantly killing eight and injuring more than twenty.

The performances was not quite over, but the terrible storm caused the immense throng to crowd out of the tent. While the people were passing out the tent was struck twice by lightning, with the above results. A fire started, but was extinguished.

The lightning struck the centre pole of the circus tent. The greatest consternation followed. The rain continued falling in great sheets, and the bodies of the dead were soaked through before they could be removed.

The number of wounded was estimated all the way up from ten to thirty. Most of them were taken home as soon as possible.

The Cranbury Press New Jersey 1893-06-30

Submitted & transcribed by Stu Beitler  Thank you, Stu!

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