CIRCUS HOROR - St. Paul Globe, June 22, 1893
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Seven Men Shocked into Eternity by Electricity at River Falls.
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The Deadly Fluid Passes Down the Center Pole of a Menagerie
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Bodies of the Dead Soaked Through Before They Are Removed.
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The Clothing on Some of the Victims Was Torn to Tatters.
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Thirty or Forty People Injured by the Terrific Shock.
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Three Bolts of Lightning Believed to Have Struck the Pole.
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Special to the Globe.
River Falls, Wis., June 21. - During a severe thunder storm this afternoon at
about 4 o'clock lightning struck the first center pole in the menagerie of
Ringling Bros.  Seven people were killed, and quite a number injured, none of
the latter fatally.  The killed are:  Alex O. Dean, Eugene Reynolds, Charles
Smith, Clark Mapes, ---- Aldridge, James Glendenning, Leslie Glendenning.

The greatest consternation immediately arose.  The rain continued falling in
great sheets, and the bodies of the dead were soaked through before they could
be removed.  As soon as possible Ringling brothers and their employees did
everything in their power to alleviate the condition of the wounded.  The dead
were taken down town and laid out on the floor of th engine house, where they
were, with the exception of one boy, identified in a few minutes after their
arrival.  The *ew, as relatives identified their dead was distressing.  One
elderly gentleman, the father of young dean, a handsome and intelligent young
man, who was so suddenly taken from life, fainted and was carried out of the
engine house moaning.  Women were present looking for relatives.  Happily none
of them recognized any of the dead as theirs while the GLOBE reporter was
present.  The clothing of some of the dead was torn in shreds, while others
presented no external evidences of fatality except the awful stare and fixed,
rigid features.  The number of wounded is estimated all the way from ten to
thirty.  Most of them were taken home as soon as possible, and are now doing
well.  The presence of mind of the Ringlings and their employees alone
prevented a stampede, which undoubtedly would have been attended with still
greater fatality.  The crowd was held in check, and the dead and wounded
removed as soon and as quietly as possible.  Al Ringling, master of ceremonies
in the circus proper, thinks there were three distinct bolts of lightning.  The
first shock nobody felt.  The lightning went right down the pole.  The second
shock caused the fatalities, and the third knocked down thirty of the circus
horses.  A carriage was passing the tent at the time, and a man, a boy and a
woman with a boy in her arms were thrown to the gound.

The father rushed around to the cook tent looking for his boy, the water at
this time being up to his knees.  Great pools of water formed at the circus
entrance, and some of the stricken, who were helped and dragged outside, were
dropped, in some instances, face downwards in these pools of water.  When your
reporter saw the dead bodies in the engine house afterwards, he noticed that
the clothing of all of them was saturated as if they had been pulled out of the
river.  Mr. Ringling rushed through the connection tent after the stroke and
around to the main entrance, where he saw a number of the bodies of the dead
and injured lying in the water and on the ground.  He thought at first that one
of his brothers was among the dead, as there was one body of gigantic
proportions among them.  Happily this fear proved unfounded.  Relieved to some
extent by this knowledge he gave his attention to the aid of the wounded and
the resuscitation of thos who he thought were not fatally injured.  He worked
for some time around the entrance of the tent, freely offering any facility in
the company's power to alleviate the suffering.  All the Ringlings did
everything in their power, and are highly commended by the citizens.  Among the
incidents was the twisting of a buggy to pieces from the seat by a bolt of
lightning.  None of the occupants were injured.  Many people were thrown
violently against them.  The dead, excepting in one or two instances were not
apparently seriously burned or scorched.  One young man named Dean, who was
thrown to the engine house, was still alive.  When the reporter entered the
doctors were working over him.  His eyes looked up appealingly, and as this
reporter bent over him they became fixed, and his life went out.  He was the
last to die.  Eugene Reynolds, a young carpenter, shywed (sic) for a few
moments after death a flush of apparent health.  Then the features relaxed,
and, like his fellow unfortunates, he became a livid evidence of the awful
destroying power of the bolt that sent so many to a final account.  All the
killed were in the full flush of health.  The three children presented pathetic
spectacles stretched out on chairs and on the floors.  None of them was over
fourteen-bright, sturdy little fellows dressed in holiday attire.  The
spectacle was the most saddening and heart-breaking ever looked upon in River
Falls.  That none of the circus employes (sic) was injured in the slightest was
marvelous.