Miami, FL Bus Wreck, Jan 1937

Seventeen Killed As Florida Bus Rolls Into Canal

Passengers Trapped in Car in 12 Feet of Water – Twenty-Three Escape

MIAMI, Fla., Jan. 25 – (AP) – An express bus plunged from the Tamiami trail today carrying 17 of its 30 passengers many of them northern tourists, to death by drowning in the Everglades.

The big vehicle overturned and rolled into a 12 foot deep canal which parallels the highway across the southern end of the peninsula.

Besides the thirteen passengers who escaped, the driver and a negro porter were saved.

The passengers were trapped in their seats as the bus sank in the stream, where the Seminoles pole their dugouts and hunt for alligators. Only a corner or the roof remained above the water.

The driver, Bill Hammond, 28, of Tamps, who escaped with slight cuts said he thought the steering gear broke.

It took divers with helmets to extricate bodies. Tamiami Trail Tours, Inc., operators of the line, numbered the passengers at 27.

The porter, Robert Singleton, a negro, said it seemed to him as if a front wheel had broken.
Mr. and Mrs. Frederick M. Gilliand of Boston escaped through the emergency door.

Another survivor was Vincent H. Rogers of Walla Walla, Wash.

A revised list of identified dead:
Mrs. Elizabeth M. Rodgers, 54, Walla Walla, Wash.
C. D. Towles, 50, St. Louis, Mo.
Edgar H. Whitney, 78, Winthrop, Mass.
Robert M. Halpen, 24, Penn-Wyne, Pa.
Thomas J. Watters, 33, of New Rochelle, N. Y.
Mrs. Sarah House, 53, Detroit, Mich
Mrs J F. Heidt, 57, High Springs, Fla.
Tentatively identified as dead:
Mrs Sarah L. Lisk, 56, Matawan, N. J.
Eight unidentified dead.

An inquest was set for Thursday before a justice of the peace here.

The Times Recorder, Zanesville, OH 26 Jan 1937
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Transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!