Monument Moment: Showmen's Rest

One of the worst train disasters in U.S. history is remembered at two Chicago-area sites: a memorial in Gary marking where a troop train slammed into the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train in 1918, killing nearly 90 people, and a mass grave in Forest Park’s Woodlawn Cemetery, where 53 victims were buried at Showmen’s Rest beneath mourning elephant statues. Despite the tragedy, the circus missed just one show—true to its motto, the show must go on.