The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-09-22

preparation OIL the Qead Ior removal
to their homes, most of which were
in nearby cities and towns.
Few Escaped Death or Injury. /!
Owing to the confusion the identi-
fcation of the dead was vt rapid.
The fact that so many of the cars
occupants were dead and SO many 9th
ers seriously hurt placed a great
handicap on the efforts to identify
those who had been killed. Few in
the car escaped death or injury, and
those in their dazed state at first
could render little aid in determining
who the dead were.
OF the four trainmen-C Corkwell and
Wilson on the limited and Vandine
and Spiller on the local-three were
killed
The wreck is the worst rail disaster
that has ever taken place in Indiana,
and in number of fatalities and other
casualties seems to be the worst in
the history of electric railroading in
this country
That the cars were going at great
speed when they came together on
the curve is proved by the complete
ness of the destruction. Few in the
northbound car which was heavily
loaded, escaped death or injury.
There were two physicians on the
cars at the time of the wreck. One
of them escaped serious injury and
with the other, who had himself been
/ painfully hurt, rendered assistance to
those who survived the shock of the
! collision. Relief cars were hurried
/ from this city and physicians went
from Bluffton in automobiles. Many
of the dead already had been removed
! from the debris of the splintered cars
4 and the work of taking out the man
/ gled remains of those in the farther
recesses of the wreckage was taken
.up by the more skillful hands of the
company's wrecking crews.
Most of the people on the north
bound car were en- route to the fair
| at Fort Wayne
/! Help from the nearby residences
was rendered to such as could be re-
/ moved from the wreckage.
Relatives Hurry to Scene.
The tragic business of identifying
of the dead, however, still remained.
4 A large number of the passengers
were strangers to each other, many OF
the survivors were SO badly hurt that
4 they were incapable of identifying any
4 one or even of speech. Some of the
bodies were SO frightfully crushed
that little of human semblance re-
NAMED to them. Others were so
deeply buried in the debris that they
could not be reached for hours.
4 The news of the accident spread
over the countryside like prairie
Il fire. In the two hours following the
accident hundreds of persons, many
i of them hysterical in the belief that
they had relatives among the dead,
began to arrive on electric cars, on
4 automobiles and in carriage ges-even
afoot.
4 Through these arrivals the identity
of many of the victims was establish
J ed officials from nearby towns who
got on the scene promptly gave the
authorization for searching the dead
for letters and this resulted IN other
: identifications.
Considerable difficulty has been en-
countered in placing the blame for the
disaster. OF the four trainmen-
, Corkwell and Wilson on the extra
} and Van Dine and Spiller of the local
all but Spiller had been killed
The electric railway people claim that
the crew of the extra had been or
dered to put into siding until the
local had passed. AS the crew OF the
extra is dead, there can be no cor
roboration from them of this state
ment. Spiller says that the motor
, man of his car had been given q
clearance and that they had expected
to mass the extra" on the siding.