08/29/2026
In the early morning hours of August 29th, 1884, a bunk car of the Anglo-American Circus train caught fire near Greeley. Over sixty members of the traveling crew were on board the car, and ten were fatally burned in the flames. The remains of the men, all of who's names were not known, were buried in a seven foot wide, ten foot long coffin at the Greeley Cemetery. (Linn Grove Cemetery)
I will let the Rocky Mountain News describe the horrible details of the fire:
"The train left Fort Collins about midnight and was running twenty-five miles an hour when the engineer discovered the car to be on fire.
"He reversed the engine and threw open the whistle valve. There were sixty men in the car, arranged in three tiers of berths on either side. The forward side door was closed and the men in bunks sleeping against it. The rear side door was also closed, and the men who awoke discovered the lower unoccupied berth next to it, containing rubbish, to be on fire, filling the car with smoke and cutting off escape in that direction.
"The only means of egress was through a small window between the car and engine. John Pine, of Edgerton, Wis., and Elmer Millet, of lowa, crawled through the opening and tried to pass in water from the engine tank.
"The train soon came to a halt. Owing to the suffocating gasses it was difficult to arouse the sleepers and some were kicked and bruised in a shocking manner and pitched out of the window.
"The screams of those unable to get through the aperture were terrifying. The wild glare of the flames, the light of the burning victims outside, who were writhing in agony on the cactus beds, caused the wild beasts in the adjoining cars to become frantic with terror and make the scene appalling. Girls in dishabille, bare-back riders and lion tamers gazed with white faces on the awful spectacle. In the midst of the confusion heroes appeared and crawled through the flames to their companions, but many of the rescued were already in the agony of death. Albert Lake, in charge of the animals, and his friend, Kent, walked over the cactus in their bare feet, pouring buckets of oil on the blistered unfortunates, and wrapping them in blankets. An old Pacific coast sailor, named McDonald, formerly of Forepaugh’s show, was terribly burned, his flesh hanging in shreds. The heartrending cries of the men on the prairie, the smothered appeals of the dying within the car, the roar of the flames and the howling animals made the night terrible.
"The odor of the roasted flesh and the distant cry of the coyotes could only add to the general horror of the scene. The voices of the men in the car grew fainter, the roof fell in and half an hour later the rails of the track were curled and twisted and the ties burned into the ground.
"In getting through the blockaded window, some had their limbs broken or joints dislocated. Hands and feet were found burned off, roasted trunks of a body were in one place, legs in another and piles of roasted, shriveled carcasses were pulled out of the burning ruins. At daylight a flat-car filled with twisted, blackened remains was run into Greeley for interment.
"The sight was revolting—eyes, nose, lips and ears were gone. Underclothing was burned and saturated with human grease that had fried from the poor men until they looked like quarters of Texas steers, slaughtered by an inhuman butcher and roasted without skinning."
After a short time, the circus continued on to Denver where the injured and burned men were placed in St. Luke's Hospital. A couple of them were not expected to live through their severe burns, but I have not found evidence that they died.
Since none of the circus performers were injured, they performed that day in Golden.
The cause of the fire was due to two men playing cards in the car. They had a burning torch leaned against a barrel of gasoline that was stored in the car, when it exploded. Several of the dead were only known by their nicknames, as they were traveling workers, sometimes picked up by the circus days prior to the accident, and records were not usually kept for them.
