TWENTY ARE DEAD

Wreck on the Rock Island Increases In Horror.

FORTY PEOPLE BADLY HURT.

Passenger Train Going at a Rapid Rate Crashes Head On Into a Freight--
Wounded and Dead Taken to Topeka.

TOPEKA, Kan., Jan 6.__ Twenty passengers aboard Rock Island westbound train No. 3, for California from Chicago, were killed five miles west of Topeka, near Willard, early this morning in a head-end collision of the passenger and a heavy Stock train. Thirty passengers were injured badly enough to require medical attendance, and six of these may have fatal injuries.

ORDERS MISUNDERSTOOD.

A misunderstanding of orders was the cause of the disaster, J. C. Nagle, the passenger conductor, says his train had the right of way and should have passed the stock train on a siding at Maple Hill, six miles from the scene of the wreck. On the other hand, it is said that the trains should have passed at Willard. Ten of the dead have been identified. The others are women and children.

List of the Dead.

The dead:
JAMES GIFFIN, Claremont, Mo.
W. S. MARTIN, DeKalb, Ills.
WILLIAM WELLS, Jacksonville, Ill.
GAIL FULLER, young girl, Blockton, Ia.
MRS, HENRY KAISER and CHILD, Germany.
E. E. MEYERS, Buffalo, N. Y.
E. E. RANKIN.
WOMAN, about 22 years of age.
INFANT GIRL.
WOMAN, of 25 years.
WOMAN, MIDDLE-aged.
GIRL, 16 years old.
CHILD, 8 years old.
CHILD, 9 years old.
BOY, 9 years old
GIRL, 13 years old.
______ Forst, middle-aged man.

LIST OF THE INJURED.

The following is a list of the injured:
G.W. Sherman, McFarland, Kas., slightly;
Blanche Martin, St. Joseph, Mo., foot sprained, face cut;
E. U. Totman, Harlan, Mo., back and head injured, not seriously;
C. I. Pried, Everest, Kas., sprains;
Mrs. H. B. Ropske, Louisville, Ky., back injured, not serious;
Mrs. D. E. Fuller, Blockton, Iowa, face cut;
Hattie Elliger, Lindsburg, Kas., face cut;
Dan. H Wadsworth, Armonsdale, Kas., leg broken;
Clarence Fowler, Hudeson, Ky., head cut;
Mrs. Alice Rosebo, address not given, bruised;
Mrs. M. A. Hill, address not given, leg and arm fractured, serious;
H. A. Jones, Everest, Kas., nose fractured, face cut;
J. C. Nagle, conductor, Kansas City, ankle broken, bruised;
T. Allen Porter, Topeka, Kas., back injured, not serious;
Frank Harville, Chillicothe, Mo., six years old, head cut;
C. A. Wright, Kansas City, fractured rib and internal injuries, serious;
V. Frazier, Kansas City, shoulder hurt;
J. Pickett, St. Joseph, Mo;
E. F. Adams, Everest Kas;
Rosa Bulls, Atchinson;
Miss Bertha Schubert, Clair, Ills.;
Frank Harville, Chillicothe, Mo.;
_______ Vaunnesan, Pullman conductor;
G. W. Sherman, McPherson;
G. W. Titman, Harlan, Kas.;
W. W. Glory, Kansas City;
Agnelo Rossi;
Mrs. Alice Rosseharrow;
Clifford Fuller;
Mrs. Louise Hill, Greensburg, Kas.;
Blanche Martin;
Mrs. Mollie Fuller, Blackwell, O. T;
C. E. Harrol, Oklahoma;
Olive Harrol, Oklahoma;
Thomas E. Allen, car porter;
C. A. Pried, Everest Kas.;
O Swendson, Topeka, Kas.;
O. W. May, Perry, Kas.;
J. F. Beittley, Pennsylvania;
Charles Fowler;
M. A. Hill;
H. A. James;
______ Muiltnan, Kansas City, Mo.;
John Black, Chanute, Kas.;
Thomas E, Small, Topeka, Kas.;
C. A. Wright, Kansas City Mo.

Head-On Collision

The trains came together at Willard Kan., head-on. The whole train was demolished. Twenty-one persons were killed and every person on the train was injured. The train, which left Kansas City at 10 o’clock last night was twenty minutes late, and at the time of the accident was running at the rate of thirty miles an hour. Many persons from Oklahoma, who had taken advantage of the home-steaders’ excursion rates, were on the train. It also contained through sleepers and chair cars for San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

DETAILS ARE MEAGRE.

Details were hard to obtain, Reporters who boarded the relief train were put off shortly after it started. The first details of the collision came from persons on the wrecked train after they had been returned to Topeka. The train was composed of a combination baggage and mail car, a regular baggage car, a smoker, a tourist sleeper and a standard sleeper. Two cars filled with passengers were demolished, both locomotives were destroyed and four car loads of stock were torn to pieces, and dozens of the dead animals were strewn over the right of way. When the engines met, they were welded together by the terrific impact. The engineers and firemen escaped without injury by jumping. It was in the third car of the passenger train, the first coach having been preceded by a smoker and baggage car, that the greatest loss of life occurred.

Smoker Was Telescoped.

The smoker, which was occupied by only two or three men, was overturned and pushed through the car behind it, which was crowded with passengers, some standing in the aisle. Most of those in the forward end of the car were killed instantly. Thirty in the rear end of the coach, however, succeeded in escaping from that end of the car, which was still unobstructed. When rescue was finally possible, only three living persons were taken out y the rescuers, who were compelled to chop holes in the side and through the floor and top of the coach to reach them. The three rescued from this portion were a man, a small girl and a middle-aged woman. One man, hurt, internally, was removed through the rear door within five minutes after the collision, but died almost as soon as the rescuers could lay him down. A woman died two hours later while trying to tell a physician her name.

Train Running Late.

The train should have met the eastbound stock train at Willard but was running on the latter’s time when the crash came, two miles west of Willard. The engines telescoped each other, the smoking car jumped high in the air and landed on the roof of the first chair car. The smoking car was telescoped and the first chair car was telescoped by the second. Dr. Munn, the Rock Island’s chief surgeon, left here on a special train with a dozen doctors when the news came.

Passengers Were Asleep.

The crash came when practically every soul in the coaches of the doomed train was asleep. Those who escaped clambored out and, not stopping to bind up their bruises, turned every effort to prevent the wreckage from catching on fire, the flames already having seized on the ruins of a number of the freight cars. Not even donning their clothes and braving the cold with only overcoats to shield them from the cutting winds, men and women from the two sleeping cars which escaped the ruin began the work of rescue. Body after body was taken from the wreckage, horribly mangled and in many cases the features so crushed that they were not recognizable. Many of the injured were pinned down by tons of twisted iron and shattered beams. The rescuers, though cut and bruised, fought like demons to relieve the suffering of the injured and to save the bodies of the dead from the flames.

Dead In Head Coach.

Willard, near where the accident occurred, is a siding without telegraph or telephone. Newspaper men were obliged to drive to the scene of the wreck, fifteen miles from here. The dead were mostly in the head coach. So far the blame has not yet been fixed, but it is believed that the freight train’s orders demanded that it wait for the passenger train at Maples Hill, the station ten miles west of the spot where the trains came into collision. The trains met on a curve and there was barely time for the engineers to set their brakes before the crash came. The heavy sleepers of the passenger train crashed the lighter day coaches one over the other.

Hero of the Wreck.

A hero of the wreck was Dr. Bell, a young physician of New York, himself a paralytic. Immediately after the crash he had the sleeping car berths arranged for the injured. Without surgical instruments or medicines he gave care to the wounded, using bed sheets for bandages and bits of wood for splints. There was a pretty young woman in the front end of the fatal third coach. She was laughing and chatting with the occupants of the seat behind her. The subject changed to the Iroquois theater horror. The young woman became sober in an instant. It was quiet in the car and her words were heard distinctly: “We never know,” she said, “when we are facing death. Even at this moment we may be thundering along toward a broken rail, a freight train, or a fast running passenger flyer bearing down upon us. Bringing death even at this moment.” She was still talking when there came a terrific crash. Her body is among the dead. One of her companions escaped. She has not yet been identified.

Fort Wayne News, Fort Wayne, IN 6 Jan 1904
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Transcribed by Audrey. Thank you, Audrey!