Ghost Tour Explores Chicago's Clown Cemetery 'Showmen's Rest'

FOREST PARK, IL — The cowboys, the wrestlers, the tumblers, the clowns, the roustabouts that move the show at dawn, they’re all part of the Tragic Tour offered by Graveside Paranormal, May 21 and June 18.

The summer ghost hunting season is upon us, and Neal Gibbons, of Graveside Paranormal, and Bob Trzeciak, the “King of Paranormal Radio,” will cohost a pair of tours exploring the south suburbs’ most haunted cold spots.

Trzeciak is a storyteller and historian, and is a featured host on Paranormal Radio. He will give the backstories of six haunted locations well-known to Chicago’s south suburbs. Gibbons and partner, Steve Leinweber, will whip out the Ana Hatta box to talk to the spirit world.

Guests will visit the following notorious landmarks by bus, including:

• Archer Woods Cemetery
• The last resting place of the Grime Sisters
• The Miracle Child of Chicago - Mary Alice Quinn/Holy Sepulchre Cemetery
• Resurrection Mary at Chet’s Melody Lounge/Haunted Archer Avenue
• Showmen’s Rest and the Suicide of Frank Nitti

New to the tour this year is Showmen’s Rest, sometimes referred to as “Chicago’s Clown Cemetery,” where 56 of the 86 victims of the 1918 Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train wreck lie buried in a tract marked off by four sculptures of elephants with droopy trunks at Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park.

The tract was purchased by the Showmen’s League of America, a fraternal organization founded in 1913 by a group of outdoor showmen at the Saratoga Hotel in Chicago. Buffalo Bill Cody, the Wild West performer, was elected the league’s first president. The league looked after the welfare of show people — circus performers, vaudeville entertainers and rodeo performers, as well as the roustabouts that moved the show at dawn.

"Specifically, how many clowns are buried there, I wouldn't know," Trzeciak said.

Just before dawn on June 22, 1918, the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train carrying 400 performers and roustabouts was headed to a show in Hammond, IN. The engineer of an approaching empty troop train had fallen asleep at the throttle when he plowed full-speed into the back of the circus train, crushing four sleeper cars. The crash ignited the kerosene lanterns on the circus train, setting it on fire. An estimated 86 people were killed and 127 injured. Most perished within 30 seconds of the impact.

The show must go on, however, and the plucky survivors missed only two performances going on to put on a show in Beloit, WI, with acts loaned by other circuses. The tragic accident would go on to inspire the spectacular train wreck in Cecil B. DeMille circus epic “The Greatest Show On Earth.”

Most of the dead were roustabouts hired the day before in Michigan City, Indiana. The bodies were so badly mangled and burned, they could not be identified. The bodies were buried in a mass grave at Showmen’s Rest. The stones mark the circus performers known only by their colorful nicknames, including “Baldy” and “4 Horse Driver.” Almost all the others simply read “Unknown Male,” followed by a number.

“Circuses in those days used to be a place to run away from a bad marriage, the law, or an unstable childhood,” Trzeciak said. “It was a hard life. Circus people didn’t ask questions, they protected each other.”

Visitors to Showmen’s Rest have claimed to hear the trumpeting of elephants, but the cemetery makes it clear that no circus animals are buried there.

“The animals were on another train,” Trzeciak said. “On a day when there isn’t a lot of traffic and the wind is blowing in the right direction, you can hear the animals at nearby Brookfield Zoo.”

In recent years, Trzeciak said people have reported smelling smoke in Showmen’s Rest. “There may be some activity, but I don’t think to the extent that every time you go there, something is going on.”

Not too far from Showmen’s Rest, the tour will stop by some train tracks behind the Hobby Lobby, where the gangster Frank Nitti, Al Capone’s right-hand man, took his own life. Allegedly, a man in a trench coat wearing a fedora appears on the tracks before dematerializing into a mist.

Both tours start at 1 p.m. May 21 and June 18, and last about 4.5 hours. Guests are asked to show up at noon to check in and sign a waiver at The Brick Tavern, 6030 W. 111th St., Chicago Ridge. Refunds will be given up to seven days before the event.

Tickets are just $40. These tickets go fast, so purchase them today on EventBrite.

Purchase tickets for May 21 tour

Purchase tickets for June 18 tour

For more info, email neal@gravesideparanormal.com, or call 708-227-7747.