Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1886-09-10
LIVING ON BURNT BEEF.
Thrilling Experience Of Passengers
on q Santa Fo Train.
Hemmed In BY water. Two Hundred
Passengers Live on Meats Cooked In
the Engineers Fire Boz-A
Dire Flood In Colorado

yesterday little. was known of the dire
Hood in Colorado which had several thou.
sand Santa Fe passengers water-bound
and imperiled the lives of hundreds OF peo-
pie. The telegraph wires being down very
meager reports came to the Missouri river,
and what was perhaps the worst fiood
ever known in the West was supposed to
he one Of the customary fteshets which
trouble the Santa Fe every year. When
the six delayed trains rolled into the Union
Depot yesterday afternoon. however, .
different tale was told, al have been in
lots of washouts," said a passenger who
bad mr-A the round trip between Pueblo
and this city, ,'"but I never saw any thing
like this one before. From Nepesta TO
Blackwell, distance of seventy miles,
there is scarcely q mile Of track left un-
disturbed by the water, and in some places
the rails are scattered all over the right Of
way, and are bent double, SO that they
could not be used when the track was re.
paired.n
"what of the story about trains narrow.
~ escaping being washed away"
"They were all true. The train I was
on, which left Kansas City Tuesday morn
ing, had about as hard time as any Of
them. We got aiong all right until we
reached Caddo, Col, Wednesday. There
we met the water; and before the con.
ductor coult get orders to go back to
Coolidge, the fool had got in behind us.
In the meantime the train which left Kan
sas City Immediately after us came up,
and there we were, about two hundred of
Us, midway the prairie, at station con-
sis;ing simply of section house, with
miles upon miles of water stretching out
on all sides. We didn't realize our situa-
tion until dinner time came There wasn't
enough In the buffet car to feed a canary
bird, and 1t began to look blue for the two
hundred hungry passengers. The train
men. however, were equal to the situation.
Making raid on the express car, they
took out some dressed beef, and builling O
fire in the section house, soon furnished q
meal that would make a buffalo hunters
mouth water. The same thing was re-
peated at night, but when we awoke the
next morning we FUND our shanty partly
sui merged. The prospect for breakfast
was rather gloomy until the conductor
told US that the lrakenen were cooking
some food in the tire-bo of the engine.
Well, to make long story short, we re-
mained there until Saturday night, using
the engine for cook stovo aid resorting
10 all sorts OF expedients to drive away
ennui. You must not suppose that our
fare consisted of poorly cooked meat the
whole time. After the water had sub
sided some what, the conductor skirmished
around and got some bread from a neigh
boring town. 1t was brought fresh every
day in wagons, and from that time on we
lived like white people. No, we had no
hat iS mot
arrived at the Ricketwire river, where we
transferred. In attempting to walk across
the bridge lady fell into the river. A
half dozen men jumped in after her and
she was soon fished out, wet, fright
ened almost into Mysteries, but little
the verse for the plunge. The Santa Fe
people treated US nicely as soon as they
got us to a place where edibles could be-
obtained. For my part / was glad to get
off as well as did. II we had arrived at
Caddoa on hour earlier we would have
been caught in one of the lowest places on
the road, and in all probability washed
into the Arkansas river. AS it was, we
happened to stop at high point on the
track, and our train was on tue only dry
place for miles around"
Yours were the only trains caught be-.
tween stations?"
'No; Tuesday nights train fareL worss
than ours. 1t met the water at Hilton, op-
posite Fort Lyon. The water came so
suddenly and with such force that before
the train men were aware OF it they were
hemmed in, and the track behind the train
was rapidly being washed into the Ar
kansas river. The conductor took in the
situation at a glance, and getting q crow
mi of fln nprf,
track some distance behind his train.
Had it not been for that the whole train
would have gone into the Arkansas river,
as the track, up to the place whore it was
cut was swept away few hours later. As
it wasi the passengers lay there thirty six,
hours with hardly any thing to eat. I
tell you, that was the worst washout that
ever occurred in this country. The rain
extended from Pueblo to the Ration range,
ard thence east to the Purgatoire river. It
came down in torrents for hours, and ALI
the streams were swollen beyond their
banks. The iron bridge across the Purga-'
toire river. supposed at the time 1t was
built to be above the high water mark,
bad three feet Of water on it. The bridge
IS still standing, but the track for one
thousand yards on either side of it was
queerest freaks. Between Caddo and Hill
ton, the track for about O mile skirts a
range of hills A big cloud burst occurred
at this point, and TIE water hemmed in
hy the hills, washed the track clear off the
right OF vay. West of La Junta he same
thing occurred. The force Of the water
broke the track, washing it off the road
bed, and for distance of FIVE hundred
yards the ties, held together by rails, are
standing on end. The damage was so
great at this point that when tho con-
struction train got there the track was left
standing and a new one put down.
"How extensive is the damage:"
ut will be ut least a month before the
road can he put in the cond ition IT was be-
fore the storm, and the repairs will cost
the Santa Fe not much less than half a
million dollars"