Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-07-01
SEVEN MEN KILLED

Bridge, Carrying Its Living Freight
Down to Death-Nearly All OF the Trains
Crew, Including Five Railway Mall
Clerks, Killed
KANSAS CITY, Mo-, June 2S.-Seven
coffins were forwarded to St Louis
Yesterday from Missouri City. They
contained the remains of victims of
| Saturday nights wreck on the Wabash
road. A corrected list of the dead is
as follows:
w. S. Mills, postal clerk, St Louis.
o. NJ Smith, postal clerk, ST. Louis.
Gustave A. Smith, postal clerk, ST.
Louis.
Charles Winters, postal clerk, st.
Louis.
F. w. Brink, postal clerk, st. Louis.
Louis.
Louis.
The conductor of the train G. G.
Copeland, of ST. Louis, who was re-
ported among the dead, is still alive.
He was removed yesterday morning to-
the railroad hospital at Moberly. With
fractured skull and several broken
ribs, he fingers between life and death,
but the surgeons express a hope that.
he will recover. Conductor Copeland
was supposed to be dead when taken
| from the wreck and his body, with
handkerchief drawn over his face, was
ranged in a row with the seven
corpses. A few minutes later some one
observed a sign of life and he was
quickly transferred to stretcher and
given every possible attention. Of the
10 others injured, not one is in crit
cal condition. Among them there is
not one broken limb, though many
were thrown three-quarters of the
| length of the coaches in which
they were riding. Mrs. w. III. Wilkin-
son, of Kansas City, is the most seri-
ously hurt. Two small bones of her
left hand are broken, and she suffered
a severe laceration of the thigh, as
well as bruises about the face and
neck. The wounds of most of the 9TH
ers are trivial.
All indications are that death came
to at least four of the five unfortunate
mail clerks almost instantly. Their
car pitched end first through the break
in the trestle, and they must'have been
drowned in the raging stream while in
an unconscious condition. The re-
mains of the four were carried from
| the wreck and were recovered some
distance down the stream. There were
signs of life in the body of the fifth
mail clerk when rescuers dragged him
from the wreck, but he died a few min
utes later on the bank of the creek.
Saturday night it was feared there
| were more bodies in the stream, but a
search Sunday proved that the fatalities
were limited to those already named.
Saturday but small stream was flow
| ing beneath the trestle where the wreck
occurred. In ordinary weather 1T is a
dry creek bed. The storm of Saturday
night, which was almost a cloud-burst,
had swollen the little stream to torren-
| tial proportions. The flood carried
away wagon bridge a short distance
above the Wabash trestle. The wreck
of this bridge was hurled down upon
the railroad trestle and carried away a
row of wooden supports in the center.
A neighboring farmer noticed the
perilous condition of the trestle and
resolved to flag the passenger train,
which he knew to be about due. For
nearly an hour he stood there in the
terrific downpour of rain, only to
fail at last in his good intentions,
| for when the Wabash company'S
fast mail came laundering on the
storm was almost binding, and the en-
gineer evidently could not see the sig
| nal which the farmer frantically
waved across the track. The loco
| motive struck the trestle; a moment.
| later the disaster was presented in all
| its horrors. The engine passed over,
but the tender went through with the.
| tumbling trestle. The baggage car
toppled over on it's side, while the mail
car, which followed, pitched into the
stream end first. Every life in this
| car was lost. The smoker, next be-
hind, followed. 1t was in this car that
| Conductor Copeland was riding. The
other occupants escaped serious injury.
The chair car, next behind, also
plunged in upon the mass of wreckage
| end first and all its passengers were
thrown to the forward end in an indie
scribable heap. How they escaped
with no more serious in juries is mys-
terry which all the passengers in this
| coach are puzzled over.
The front end of the sleeper. next in
the rear, jammed into the protruding
end of the chair car and was thus pre-
vented from following the other into
the chasm. The two Excelsior Springs
coaches in the rear end remained ON
| the track.
The scene of the wreck. which is bnt
| 81 miles northeast of Kansas City, near
Missouri City station, was visited yes
terday by many persons. A wrecking
train worked there all day repairing
the trestle and raising the shattered
coaches, and last night trains were
moving over the road as usual.