Chariton courier. (Keytesville, Chariton County, Mo.) 1878-current, 1921-04-22
4 DISASTROUS Wreck
Three Young Men Met Death.
Fourteen Cars in Creek
Enormous Loss.

east bound passed over the
bridge across East Fork two.
miles east of Clifton Hill No. 81
a heavy freight west bound ex-
perienced the worst wreck on the
road in years. The locomotive
and-12 cars cleared the bridge
but for some reason the thirteen
th car left the track at the en-
trance and things terrible begun
to happen. One car after anoth-
er was piled up in the creek atop
of each other, the bridge so COM
pletely demolished that not a
vestige of it remained visible
and what was worse than all
else, seven boys from Is to 20
years old, were submerged in a
coal car loaded with iron pipe. a
big car of butter holding the car
they were in, down to the bot
tom. of the bank-full stream.
The boys were from Huntsville
and had boarded the train to
have q, free ride to Salisbury.
The car they selected for the
ride was a coal car loaded with
iron pipe from A inch up in size,
the pipe too long for the car
-andthe forward ends sticking
out and the rear ends not filling
the side boards and in this space
the boys planted themselves un-
til the catrastophe landed them
in the water. Two of them
could not swim but these with
three Others managed to get out;
pop up thru the wreckage and
water and reach the bank. One
was drowned and one was pinned
by a>big splinter which would
have caused death had he not
been under water. One of the
boys who reached the shore and
who thot he was not badly in
jured, died Monday morning.
One escaped without more
damage than a very small scratch
on the back of one hand and the
others with but slight damage.
The East Fork was bank full
when the wreck occurred and
being only about wide enough to
accommodate one car -lengthwise,
it is a marvel how so many
could have been placed in the
space they occupied. One car
containing Chevrolet autos was
on end with enough of one side
torn away to disclose its contents,
one car with two big Hudson
Super Six autos therein was
gently reclining on the east bank
almost straight up and not quite
half submerged. A car of fur
niture and a car of incubators
were each under other cars and
others on top of them. One car
of what the big crowd which had
collected to see the sights sup
posed to contain beer since the
kegs were familiar, was really
loaded with kegs of near beer
and as the wrecking crews tore
away the cars and released con-
tents into the creek, among other
merchandise dozens of these kegs
fioated away. Dry and not de-
string the supposed beer to suffer
Tor want OF attention, come OF
the spectators went down stream
and fished out perhaps a hum
dred kegs. Sampling was in or
der but the bnDes stuck fast.
One young fellow got "a piece of
iron pipe and another heavy
piece of timber and they went
for bune in approved starter
style. When the bung went in
the near bear shot out geyser
fashion and the young man hold
ing the starter was spouted
about 80 feet and is in bed yet
from the jolt. The remainder Of
the kegs are on the ground un-
molested at last accounts. There
was an enormous lot Of furni-
ture. incubators. breeders and
other st1f released By breaking