The Indianapolis journal., 1903-11-02
GREAT CROWD VISITS CITY.
Thousands Came I'm on Railroads and
Interurbans to Inspect the Scene.


Interurbans to Inspect the Scene.
Everywhere people came together yester-
day. i'm the hotels, at the railroad station,
in church, in street cars and on the streets,
there was just one topic of conversation
the wreck of the Purdue special train
Saturday morning.
The awful disaster which overlook the
Purdue students few minutes before they
would have alighted safely at the Union
Station, killing and fatally injuring fifteen
of their number and injuring nearly fifty
others, was discussed in all its details
Nothing else could hold the interest and
attention of people. and conversation al
ways reverted to the wreck.
Nothing has happened in Indiana for
years that created such absorbing interest
and general sadness as the wreck of the
Purdue excursion. People of all kinds
talked about the disaster and lamented the
death of the Purdue students just the same
as the young men and women who have
friends in Purdue or have attended the in
stitution or are members of the student
body there.
Thousands of people went to the scene Of
the wreck. near Eighteenth and Mill
streets. yesterday. Little idea of the ex-
tent of the disaster could be had by going
there yesterday, for most of the debris had
been cleared away. Thousands of men and
women walked about the place yesterday,
specializing as to how the accident occurred
and discussing other details Of the wreck.
All day long, from early morning until
darkness fell, great crowd of people Wis
tied the scene of the wreck where Yard
master John Q. Hicks and a large force of
workmen were engaged in clearing away
the debris. BY night nearly all of the de-
bris had been loaded on cars and taken
away. Yardmaster Hicks had the wreck
sufficiently cleared away for all trains to
pass by o'clock Saturday night-eight
hours after the collision occurred. So the
work yesterday was entirely in loading the
debris on cars and cleaning the company s
premises.
CAME ON TRACTION CARS.
The wreck created as much interest in
towns and cities within forty and fifty
miles of Indianapolis, as right in the city,
and all the traction lines brought hundreds
of people to indianapolis yesterday to see
the wreck. The unusually large amount
of Sunday travel to indianapolis was no.
ticed on the cars or nearly all the traction
lines from Q o'clock in the morning until
the middle of the afternoon. AS soon as
the people from the neighboring cities and
towns reached the downtown district they
Immediately took street cars which would
carry them to the scene of the wreck.
The travel TO Senate avenue and Six
teenth and Eighteenth streets. which are
the nearest points TO the wreck TO be
reached by street cars, was heavy that
the Street-railway Company found IL nee
essary to continue In operation its special
schedule over the Northwestern avenue
line. A large number of extra cars were
put on this line Saturday morning imme-
diately after news of the wreck reached the
business section of the city. and II was
necessary TO run all the extra cars yester-
day TO furnish adequate accommodation to
the visitors to the scene OF the most terri
BILE railroad disaster that ever occurred in
this city.
AT the newspaper offices, hotels and other
places where bulletins concerning the con-
dition of the injured students were dis
played, people congregated all day. eagerly
reading each new bit of information.
Throngs of people congregated all day
about the pictures of the wreck displayed
in The Journal window and at other places
down town. large number of good views
of the wreck were. displayed, and they were
even more interesting TO thousands than
the bulletin boards. So great was the de-
mand for the story of the catastrophe In
10 .F.GF Of 1r.x l. --I-- Il