Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1904-08-11
ONE HUNDRED
PEOPLE PERISH
A Worlds Fair Flyer on Denver 4 Rio
Grande PlunSeS Through TreStl0.
SEYENTY-SIX BODIES ARE RECOVERED
Many Buried Under Sand and Mud-Only
Three of Those Who Went Down
in Ill-Fated Train Escape
With Their Lives.

Pueblo, Colo, Aug. S.-The wreck OF
the Worlds Fair flyer on the Denver d
Rio Grande railroad near Eden, seven
miles north of Pueblo, last evening, proves
to have been one of the greatest railroad
disasters in the history of the country.
Two crowded passenger cars and baggage
car were engulted in the torrent that tore
out trestle spanning Steele's otherwise
known as Dry creek, and so far as known
tonight, only three Of the occupants OF
these cars escaped death. Fortunately
two sleeping cars and a diner, completing
the train, remained on the track, at the
edge of the abyss, and none of their oc-
cupants was killed or injured.
How many perished probably never
will be definitely ascertained for tie
treacherous sands are drifting over the
bodies. Searching for the dead was be-
gun about midnight on an extensive scale
and still is in progress tonight. All corpses
found were brought to Pueblo and placed
in four morgues here. At 8 O'Clock this
evening 76 bodies have been recovered
and of these fifty had been identified.
During the day bodies were recovered all
the way along Fountain river from the
scene of the wreck to this city. At
! O'Clock this afternoon two bodies we're
taken from the stream at First street,
Pueblo, more than eight miles from the
point where the disaster occurred and 1t
ia probable that some may be recovered
further down the stream.
Two car loads of human freight plunged
into the raging torrent that destroyed the
trestle over the usually dry Arroyo, known
as Steele's Hollow, near Eden, about 8
O'Clock last evening. Two sleeping cars
and the dining car stopped at the brink
of the hungry chasm filed with boiling,
seething current that quickly snufed out
probably 100 lives. So quietly had the
catastrophe been enacted that the occu'
pants of the three cars remaining on the
track did not realize that an accident had
occurred until they slighted from the
train.
Then they were utterly powerless to
render assistance to the victims who had
disappeared in the rushing waters.
On the lookout for danger, warned by
the squally clouds and heavy rains TO the
North, Engineer Charles Hindman was
running cautiously about fifteen miles an
hour, as he approached the Arroyo which
was spanned by bridge ninety-six feet
in length. The condition of the bridge
was not known until the locomotive, one
of the monster passenger type, had nearly
crossed. Fireman Frank May6eld, with
a torch that the engineer and the fireman
had burning to ascertain the condition OF
the track, was in the gangway. When
Engineer Hindman felt the tremor in the
great machine and caught glimmer on
,he water he shouted his last words
"Put out that TORCH" evidently think
ing that in the accident he felt certain was
coming the flames would serve to spread
fire. But before Mayfeld could obey
while the words were still on the lips Of
the doomed man, and his hand seeking
the mechanism controlling the air, the
bridge gave way as though it had been q
stack of kindling wood and the locomotive
dropped with the Kissing Of steam thirty
feet to the bottom of the Arroyo, Cross-
wise to the track.
The baggage car, smoking car and chair
car followed the locomotive into the
s'ream and we're swept away. All the
occupants Of these cars except three men
psrished, and had not the roof of the
chair car burst asunder none would haye
escaped. The fireman, as the locomotive
went over, was thrown out and managing
ITO grasp a piece of wreckage from the
Z bridge, foated with that to a curve made
by the caving bank and crept out of the
water. He ran toward Eden, meeting on
the way Operator F. M. Jones and his
wife, who had already started up the
track.
'sNotify Pueblo came the voice of the
running man, ''the trains gone down and
everybody is killed"
AS be spoke, relates the opera.or, there
we're cries coming from the distance. The