The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1904-08-09
% BODIES
RECOVERED
Worlds Fair Express Falls
into River
DENVER & RIO GRANDE
Br dge Went Down with Train
and Torrent Carried Cars
-Four Miles.
DENVER & RIO GRANDE

PUEBLO, Colo, Aug. 9.-The worlds
fair fiier, the fastest train sent out of
Denver by the Denver and Rio Grande
Railway company, crashed through a
bridge over Dry creek, an arroyo near
Eden, on the main line. about eight
miles from Pueblo, at s o'clock at
night.
1t is estimated that of the 125 pas
sengers on board the III fated train
fully 100 lost their lives, either under
the waters of a raging torrent due to
cloudburst or beneath the wreckage.
Two carloads of human freight
plunged into the raging torrent that
destroyed the trestle. Two sleeping
cars and the dining car stopped at the
brink of the hungry chasm fillrd with
a boiling, seething current that quickly
snuffed out probably n hundred lives.
So quietly had the catastrophe been
enacted that the occupants Of the three
cars remaining on the track did not
realize that an accident had occurred
until they alighted from the train
Then they We're utterly powerless to
render assistance to the victims who
had disappeared in the rushing waters.
The wreck proves TO have been one
of the greatest railroad disasters in the
history of the country, Two crowded
passenger cars and Il baggage car were
engulfed in the torrent that tore out
the trestle spanning Steeles hollow,
otherwise known as Dry creek, and so
far as known only three of the occu-
pants of these cars escaped death.
How many perished probably never
will be definitely ascertained, for the
treacherous sands are drifting over the
bodies.
Latest reports from the scene of the
wreck say that sixty-three bodies have
been recovered and that no more are
now in sight. The search continues,
and bodies will in all probability be
taken out farther down the stream,
where they We're washed and covered
by the mud and sand
The bridge went down under the
weight of the train, and baggage car,
smoker and chair cars were precipitat-
ed into the torrent. The engine got al
most across. but fell back into the wa
ter. The body of Engineer Hinman
was found 200 feet down the river
All the cars We're washed down the
stream. The express car was found not
far away, with the safe open and its
contents gone. The chair car was half
u mile from the scene of the accident
half filled with sand. in which were
buried the bodies of many passengers.
The smoker wis washed still farther
down stream and was not located until
several hours after the time of the nc
cident.
When Division Superintendent Bow |
rem reached the scene of the wreck. the |
missing cars had not been located, and |
the passengers and train hands who ac. |
him organized searching |
parties to follow the course of the river.
The three cars were found close to the |
sLore in Fountain creek, of which Dry |
creek is tributary and which in turn
flows into the Arkansas river.
Most of the dead We're in the cars
buried under the debris. The bodies
Of three young women were washed
up on the bank of the river three
quarters of mile below the scene of
the wreck.
The disaster was the worst that has
ever occurred on the Denver and Rio
Grande railroad. Dry creek, is one of
the most dangerous points on the road.
1t is not far from Butte, where two
years ago washouts occurred which
crippled the service of the line, but
caused no loss of life.
Whether the engine and the tor
rent of water from the cloudburst
struck the bridge simultaneously or
whether the torrent had already under
mined the structure is not known Re
ports made to the Denver Office of the
road say that the air brake was turned
on and that this saved the diner and
;leepers from being precipbated into
the creek.
II the water was at high mark the
1epth ranged from twenty TO twenty
i've feet and the current was irresist-
BILE.
When the baggage car, smoker and
2 lir car left the tracks and plunged
nto the stream they were swept down