M.J. Pack

Are you creeped out by clowns? 🤡 If not, how about a whole train of circus performers who died on their way to a show?

The Train Wreck That Killed Over 100 Circus Performers

Credit: Author M.J. Pack

I’ll admit it, I don’t fall into the category of people creeped out by clowns. I mean sure, I don’t want one to murder me or anything, but I just don’t have that visceral reaction to clowns that a lot of others seem to. However, the idea of a catastrophic train wreck where massive numbers of circus performers were mutilated beyond recognition? Yeah, that’s a visual to keep me up at night.

Early in the morning of June 22, 1918, Alonzo Sargent was operating a Michigan Central Railroad train with 20 empty cars. He’d been following close behind a circus train going considerably slower, and whoopsy-doodle, fell asleep at the wheel. (Do trains have wheels? Or is it like a control panel? Whatever, he fell asleep at a bad time.)

The 26-car circus train had stopped to check a hot box but Sargent was taking a little nap so his train plowed into the caboose and four rear sleeping cars at an estimated 35 miles per hour.

Most of the 104 dead were killed in less than a minute after collision, then the wreck burst into flames. Many of the bodies couldn’t be identified due to the severity of the injuries, so most casualties are marked “Unknown Male” or “Unknown Female”. In case that’s not creepy enough, you’ve also got graves marked “Smiley” and “Baldy”, plus the confirmed deaths of the Great Dierckx Brothers (a strongman duo) and Jennie Ward Todd of The Flying Wards. (If you’re interested, you can visit Showmen’s Rest in Forest Park, Illinois.)

A historic tragedy, sure — but there’s just something undeniably haunting about the idea of an early 20th century circus wandering the train tracks at night, searching for the final performance that will never come.

Should I share more articles like this? I have a lot in my reserves… 💀

The Infamous Bank Robber Whose Dead Body Ended Up As An Amusement Park Prop

Elmer McCurdy was a bank and train robber who lived a pretty typical life for someone born in the late 1800s. You know, thought his biological mother was actually his aunt, drifted around America boozin’ it up, trained as a machine-gun operator in the Army, started robbing trains with nitroglycerin… wow. My life suddenly feels aggressively boring.

In 1911, during a bungled robbery of a Katy Train in Oklahoma, McCurdy was killed while trying to steal $400,000 meant for the Osage Nation. Apparently not a strategic genius, he and his men stopped a passenger train instead (oops). They made off with a grand total of $46, two bottles of whiskey, a revolver, a coat, and the train conductor’s watch. (Because SCREW YOU, CONDUCTOR. Let’s see you keep things on schedule now.)

McCurdy was implicated almost immediately and hunted down by a posse of three sheriffs, who shot him. He died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

But that is not the end of “The Bandit Who Wouldn’t Give Up.”

His body went unclaimed— and a weird undertaker decided to embalm him, shave his face, dress him in a suit, and store him in the back of the funeral home because apparently he really wanted ghosts. He refused to release or bury the body and instead began displaying it (!!!) in the corner of the funeral home. For a nickel, you could look at his dead body. The past was… a different time, I guess.

McCurdy became a popular attraction, and carnival promoters tried repeatedly to buy the body, but the undertaker always said no. In 1916, two men claiming to be McCurdy’s brothers finally took custody of him.

They were not his brothers. They were James and Charles Patterson, owners of the Great Patterson Carnival Shows. McCurdy was exhibited as “The Outlaw Who Would Never Be Captured Alive” until 1922, when the carnival was sold to Louis Sonney. (Why were there so many traveling carnivals back then? Did everyone have a side gig in a carnival? Was it just so history could feel extra creepy later? I HAVE QUESTIONS.)

Sonney put McCurdy’s co**se on display in his “Museum of Crime.” By this point, the body wasn’t doing great. He had shriveled to about the size of a child, and his skin had deteriorated badly. Here’s the kicker: because most of the Museum of Crime consisted of wax figures, when Sonney died in 1949, McCurdy’s actual co**se was sent to a Los Angeles warehouse along with the rest of the collection.

From there, he appeared in the 1967 film She Freak, a wax museum at Mount Rushmore, and eventually ended up as a prop in the “Laff in the Dark” funhouse at The Pike, an amusement park in Long Beach, California. Just imagine how many people walked through that place with no idea there was a dead bank robber hanging over their heads. Absolutely not.

In 1976, the crew of The Six Million Dollar Man was filming at The Pike. A prop man moved what he assumed was an old wax mannequin hanging from a gallows and accidentally broke off an arm. That mannequin was Elmer McCurdy. When the arm snapped, human bone and muscle tissue were visible. I assume the prop man immediately reconsidered every life choice he’d ever made and never entered a funhouse again.

In 1977, McCurdy was finally buried next to fellow outlaw Bill Doolin in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

The traveling bandit was, at last, put to rest.

Credit: M.J. Pack

It’s been a minute, my lovelies, but I have a new story brewing in my brain. It came to me after getting a private tour of a local (haunted!) theatre, where I saw this painting hidden in the rafters above the lobby. It’s taller than I am and torn in half… stay tuned to see what I come up with, and wish me luck! 🖤

Not me using my daughter’s doctor toys to stage the scene I’m working on in my gothic horror novel… in other news, I’m writing again! 🖤

Living my best life. 🖤👻

There’s spooky stuff a’brewin’… any guesses? 👻