THE TRAIN WRECK OF MARCH 21, 1910
Green Mountain, Iowa
Evening Times Republican
Monday, March 21, 1910

HEADLINES

NEARLY FORTY DEAD, MANY HURT IN WRECK

Thirty-Six Dead Bodies Taken Out of Wreckage and Over Thirty Injured Brought to This City

SEVERAL OF THE INJURED WILL DIE; AMBULANCES RACE AGAINST DEATH

Red Cross Wagons, with Horses on Dead Run, Go Thru Main Street at Breakneck Speed to Reach Hospital - Two Trains of the Rock Island, Detouring Over the Great Western, Wrecked When Engines Leave the Track - Three Cars Telescoped, and Toll of Life and Limb is Appalling - All Doctors of This City Sent to the Scene in Automobiles, and Temporary Morgue is Established - Survivor Tells Harrowing Tale - Scenes Beggar Description

     In the most terrible wreck that has ever happened anywhere near this city close to forty people lost their lives today and thirty or more were injured, and some of them fatally. The wreck occurred at a point four and one-half miles north of Green Mountain, on the Chicago Great Western, when two consolidated Rock Island trains, detouring because of another wreck, went into the ditch at 8:14 this morning.

Thirty-nine Dead Accounted For

     Up to a late hour this afternoon thirty-two dead had been accounted for, but only four had been identified. The rescue party laid the dead aside for the injured as their cases demanded the immediate attention; the dead were beyond aid.
     The death list may reach forty before the wreckage is cleared away, and even this list is likely to be increased by the victims who are injured.
     The wreck occurred at a point four and one-half miles north of Green Mountain, just a few yards east of the Marshall-Tama county line. A wreck at Shellsburg early this morning had compelled the detouring of the Rock Island trains. No. 21, the St. Louis-Twin Cities passenger, and No. 19, the Chicago-Twin Cities passenger, west bound, had been sent over the Great Western and at the time the accident occurred were backing at the rate of about twenty-five miles an hour. The two trains combined totaled ten coaches, pulled by engines Nos. 820 and 1009.

Engine Jumps Track

     Upon reaching the point just east of the Marshall county line the head engine, No. 820 jumped the track, pulling the 1009 with it. At this point there is a deep cut, ten or twelve feet in depth, thru a solid back of clay. The clay was wet and the big engines scarcely budged when they struck it, toppling over toward the south and east. The stop of the train was so sudden that the cars were telescoped. Both engines were badly wrecked.

Two Cars are Veritable Tombs

     The first car back of the engines was the Colonia, a Pullman. Back of it was the smoking car and a ladies' day coach. It was in these two cars that the loss of life was so heavy, and the greatest number were injured. These three cars were a part of train No. 21, and it was among the passengers of this train that the people were killed.

Sleeper Telescoped Smoker

     The heavy death rate in the smoking car was due to the fact of the heavier Colonia being in front. The sleeper completely cut away the superstructure of the smoking car to a point within a few feet of the rear end of the car. The sleeper forced its way thru the smoker on top of the car floor, dealing death and injury to everything in its path.
     The smoker, in turn, telescoped the ladies' car, and partially demolished it.

Pullman Passengers Escape

     Compared to the death loss in the smoker and day coach the passengers in the Pullman escaped with slight loss. According to the Pullman conductor only two were killed in this car, and five or six injured. The ladies' day coach contained about eighty people, and the smoking car was also well filled.

Scenes at the Station

     It was a day of horrors. At the station a multitude gathered whitefaced and horrified waiting the coming of the special train. Pallid officers of the road mingled among the crowds nearly or quite as anxious for definite news as the crowd that surged and questioned. The streets and the platforms were filled when the death train drew in. The full extent of the calamity had not been realized. The cars were crowded with dead and dying and wounded. The hurry calls for wagons and conveyance brought teams on the full run thru the streets. One by one the bloodstained victims were taken thru the windows and tenderly as might be sent away to the hospitals and the temporary morgue.

A Survivor's Story

     George W. Downing, of Vinton, was in the smoker, the third car from the locomotive. He was hurt slightly on the ankle and pinned down under a seat. "The first I knew," said he, "the car just went squash. The other car came right back thru into us. Two men sitting in front of us were squashed to death and we were down on the bottom with the world piled upon us." On the seat with Mr. Downing was F. O. Fulmer, of Vinton. The first thing he realized the men in front of him "were crushed back against them." "We were sitting in a double seat," he said, "A man sat facing us. He and the seat came crashing back on us and flattened us to the floor." Before him two men were sitting, one a colored man. "There we lay, under the living man opposite us and the two dead men who were literally smashed and whose blood rained down on us thru the wreckage. I don't know how I got out, whether thru a door or a window. The first I remember about getting out I was dragging at the rubbish trying to release Downing and the other living man. I got the men free and then others came." Outside of a scratch on the arm, Mr. Fulmer escaped without injury.
     Dr. Dunham, of Sioux Falls, and Dr. J. W. DeVry of Chicago were badly shaken by their experiences but otherwise unhurt when a Times-Republican man saw them at the depot platform where the mangled and dead were being taken from the coaches. Dr. Dunham was the first man in the Pullman and he and Dr. DeVry the only physicians on the train. Dr. Dunham says he counted forty dead and knows more are under the wreckage. Dr. DeVry made the count of dead thirty-seven and the wounded forty-five. These two men appear to have been heroic in their effort to save life and alleviate suffering. Dr. Dunham says, "the trains were backing up at the rate of about twenty-five miles an hour when the crash came; that the arrangement of cars was ideal for death. The Pullman crashed back thru the more flimsy cars like paper."

Turn Attention to Injured

     By reason of the fact that the injured demanded so much attention the attempts to identify the dead were abandoned. It was important that no time be wasted in furnishing succor to the injured, and further than the names of the train crew, none could be secured up to late this afternoon.

Doctors Hurried to Scene

     All the doctors of the city who could be secured were hurried to the scene of the wreck in automobiles and a dozen or more responded. Other autos took newspaper men and others. Ambulances were prepared in readiness, and the hospital made ready to receive the injured. The ambulances that brought the injured to the hospital went thru the streets at a breakneck speed in their race against death. Prof. L. W. Parrish, of Cedar Falls, died shortly after reaching the hospital.

Establish Temporary Morgue

     A temporary morgue has been established at 17 South Center street, where the bodies are being received to await identification.

Other Survivors' Stories

     C. W. Maler, of Walla Walla, Wash., was in lower six berth in one of the Pullman coaches nearest the rear of the train. "I didn't realize it was a wreck," said he. "It sounded as tho a man had thrown a brick on the floor. The car I was in was well back. In front of it were the mail and baggage cars, ahead of these, the smoker, then a coach and a Pullman. I looked out and saw the engine overturned before I realized it. It didn't feel like a wreck."
     "I saw some terrible things. One man had his head completely cut off above the eyes, another man had been knocked and driven head first into a window. The glass was broken and was cutting him where his head rested on the sill and under all that awful weight above. He screamed and cried for some one to kill him. I found a stick and broke the glass under his cheek where it lay on the sill and the man's lower jaw with the bone and five or six teeth in it, fell on the ground at my feet."
     An old man ran about pleading of us to rescue his son. He, the father, was badly hurt but he pleaded and wept for aid to bring his son out of the debris. I saw the son when he was brought out later. He was cut entirely in twain. They hid the mangled remains from his father and let the old man believe that his son was still in the wreck.
     "There were three couples from Vinton, I think, who were on a pleasure trip, three young men and three young women. One of these, a beautiful girl was killed. She had taken a prize in a beauty contest I was told by one of them, and was an expert stenographer having lately taken a prize for expert work in Chicago. She was a beautiful woman and I pitied the young man who was with her. He was severely injured also."
     "My God!" exclaimed W. T. Shreiner, of Rochester, N. Y., a young man who had escaped injury. "I saw a woman taken out with her little girl that seemed to me the most pitiful sight in my life. They were both crushed to death. The mother had reached and folded the child in her arms in an effort to protect her and they were taken out dead wrapped in each other's arms. And those women in the coach, crushed in a mass together, heads hanging down, matted hair, bloody, twisted out of human shape. I have seen what I shall see all my life when I dream." "Tell me," he demanded, "why the railroad officials were three hours getting relief of any kind to that charnel house?"

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