Sulphur Springs, MO Terrible Train Collision, Aug 1922

38 DEAD, 137 INJURED IS TOLL OF COLLISION AT SULPHUR SPRINGS

25 MORE OF THOSE IN FOUR CARS HURLED DOWN 50-FOOT EMBANKMENT MAY DIE.

4 IN ONE FAMILY ARE KILLED.

Ghouls Start Robbing the Dead and Dying and One is Caught in the Act.

MANY BODIES UNIDENTIFIED

Railroad Officials, After Inquiry, Assert No. 4 Train Ran By Signal for Stop.

Special to The New York Times.
St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 6 -- Thirty-eight dead and 137 injured, 25 critically, was the toll taken by the rear-end collision of two Missouri Pacific trains at Sulphur Springs last night, a check-up revealed today. Most of the dead and injured were brought to St. Louis, where the latter crowded every hospital in the city.
Failure of the engineer of Train 4, the fast passenger steel train, which crashed into No. 32, the local standing on the track, to heed a block signal was the cause of the disaster, according to JOHN CANNON, Assistant General Manager of the road. The block signal, warning that the track was not clear ahead, was unnoticed by MATT ENGEL GLENN of St. Louis, engineer of the fast train, according to CANNON. GLENN, 57 years old and an engineer for thirty-five years without a black mark against his record, jumped from his cab just before the crash and was killed. EDWARD TINSLEY, also of St. Louis, firemen of No. 4, remained at his post and was seriously injured.
Officials of the road declared that the block signals were working properly and were set against No. 4. The inference, therefore, is that Engineer GLENN should have brought his train to a halt.
List of Known Dead.
The identified dead are:
BOYER, MISS SUSIE, 17, St. Louis, Mo.
CAMPBELL, SAM, address not known.
CAMPBELL, MILDRED, address not known.
CLEMONS, EUGENE, Boy Scout, St. Louis.
COOPER, ALICE, Festus, Mo.
CRAFTON, Private JOHN, United States Army.
DAVIS, SAM, St. Louis.
DE GONIA, MRS. THOMAS, St. Louis, and three children, MELVIN, 5, RALPH, 6, and ROBERT 8 months.
DEWEY, GEORGE, Belgrade, Mo.
DYNAN, ALLEN, 31, Bethlehem, Pa.
EAVES, THELMA, 10, St. Louis.
EICHENBERGER, RUDOLPH, Hopewell, Mo.
GLENN, MATT W., St. Louis, engineer No. 4.
GOEFF, WILLIAM, Cadet, Mo.
GUFF, BEULAH, 13, Washington, Mo.
HARRIS, EUGENE, Belgrade, Mo.
HEIFF, IRENE, 23, Destroge, Mo.
HITT, MRS. CHARLES G., 60, Chanon, Mo.
HITT, MRS. T., St. Louis.
HOW, MRS. ISABELLE, 54, St. Louis.
KODY, MRS. MATILDA, 44, St. Louis.
KODY, MILDRED, 10, daughter of M. KODY.
McCLELLAND, DR. CHARLES, 30, dentist, St. Louis.
McKEENAN, JAMES, Winchester, Ill.
MASTEN, DARIUS, 30, Coatsville, Ind.
MOON, MISS IRENE, Festus, Mo.
MULHALL, MISS NELLIE, 43, St. Louis.
PALMER, MRS. LIDA, widow, of Detroit, Mich.
PARKER, R. E., St. Louis.
PENLEY, the REV. V. O., DeSoto, Mo.
POTTER, MISS ESSIE, 15, Herculaneum, Ill.
WARD, W., St. Louis.
WILKINSON, MRS. AMANDA, 60, Belgrade, Mo.
WILKINSON, GEORGE D., 23, son of MRS. A. WILKINSON.
How The Collision Happened.
The local train was due in St. Louis at 6:35 P. M. It was after 7 o'clock when it stopped at Sulphur Springs to take on water. A few of those on the coach which had cleared the trestle when the train stopped, impatient at the depot, got out to take a brief turn up and down the tracks as a relief from the crowded cars.
No. 4, a llimited out of Ft. Worth, with passengers from Texas and larger cities along the line, was running about on time, and must have been at Riverside, not four miles down the track, while the local was standing still. From the water tower ran an empty side track which would have meant safety to the train on the main line. Then a blast from the whistle of the speeding limited, rushing on beyond the curve in tracks around the bluffs, caused few of those who had alighted from the local to look back nervously. They had been watching the play of colors from the setting sun in the river which swept by a short distance away.
Dashing around the curve came the limited train. A shout. A man rushing down the track by the halted local shouting a warning. Then there came the grinding of the brakes of the oncoming train, cries, and almost immediately a crash.
Four coaches of the standing train tumbled down the embankment from the tracks and the tresltes across Glaizer Creek. Where the day coaches of the local had stood across the trestle, now stood the battered steel cars of the limited flyer. The locomotive had plowed its way through more than half the length of the halted train, and came to a stop across the trestle, steel girders bent around its forward end and splinters of what had once been a car, compressed into a space of about ten feet before it against a coach which seemingly was uninjured.
From the cars which had rolled down the embankment no sounds came at first. Then shouts, agonized cries and moans. From the windows of the overturned cars crawled the survivors. They were dazed and knew not what had happened.
Rush To Rescue Victims.
After the first dazed moments, realization came, and the survivors, the passengers from the limited train and the people of the little town attracted by the noise, rushed to aid the victims. Cries of the wounded aided the rescuers. Bodies were taken out as they were found; it could not be told whether they were dead or unconscious.
Night descended to make the task more difficult. The dead were placed in rows on the ground near the station, and on the porch of a nearby store and in empty baggage cars. DR. W. W. HULL of Sulphur Springs, was the first physician to arrive. Soon after the crash he was administering to the wounded, and single-handed he treated twenty-five persons before the arrival on the wreck train of a corps of doctors from the Missouri Pacific Hospital in St. Louis.
Ghouls appeared on the scene shortly after the crash to rob the dead and dying. Only one was arrested, however, and he said he was WILLIAM HALL, of St. Louis. Several pieces of wearing apparel, taken from the victims were found on his person, also a Bible. A number of persons were seen to leave the scene with suitcases and baskets.
At 9 o'clock a relief train from De Soto arrived, bearing doctors and surgeons. An hour and a half later a train from St. Louis arrived, bringing aid. Additional physicians were rushed from St. Louis in automobiles. DR. PAUL F. VASTERLING, Chief Surgeon of the Missouri Pacific, accompanied by other doctors, left the Missouri Pacific Hospital in St. Louis as soon as he heard of the wreck and reached the scene of the disaster in an automobile.
The moonlight, sifting through a veil of mist over the river, helped light the rescuers in their work. Lanterns were found and searchlights from locomotives and a boat on the river illuminated the scene.
Some of the dead had to be dragged by main force from under the wreckage. Later the stagnant pools of water in the creek bed were searched with grappling hooks and stiff, soaked forms were brought to the surface. Many of the dead were in holiday attire. Inquests were hastily conducted by Coroner ELDER.
Bodies Are Taken To St. Louis.
Relief trains took most of the dead and injured to St. Louis, where they arrived early this morning. Anxious crowds waited weary hours in the midway at the station for the arrival of the trains or news of persons known to be on the two trains. The fast passenger train from Fort Worth, Texas, carried 180 passengers, and the local 100.
At 2 o'clock this morning the last body was recovered. Work was then started on clearing up the debris, and at sunrise it was well under way. From the front of the engine of No. 4 was pulled one of the two coaches of the accommodation which was little damaged. Next came some splintered wood wedged against the nose of the engine. It had once been a railway car.
Scattered trucks which had carried cars were assembled. The four coaches of the accommodation train, which had been knocked from the trestle and the embankment, were picked up. The baggage car of the limited train, whose steel sides had bulged from the compression of the blow, was drawn from its precarious perch on the trestle over the creek and practically fell to pieces as it was pulled away. By 3 o'clock this afternoon only splintered wood was left to tell the story of the catastrophe.
Ten thousand people visited the scene of the wreck today. Their automobiles crowded the roads leading to Sulphur Springs. Most of the curious swarmed over the station area, examined the wrecked cars and examined the muddy bed of the creek.

Engineer Was Reading Orders.
Sulphur Springs, Mo., Aug. 6 (Associated Press) -- Train No. 4, running at full speed, crashed inito No. 32, a local, composed of five wooden day coaches, a baggage car an express car, as the engine was taking water with the coaches stretching back on a trestle over a creek.
Engineer GLENN shortly before arriving in Sulphur Springs received orders "on the run" to pull over on a siding at Cliff Cave, ten miles north of here, to allow "Sunshine Special No. 1," en route from St. Louis to Texas points, to pass, and, an official explained, the engineer failed to heed the signal because he apparently was reading these orders when he passed the block. The orders were found near his body.
One of the saddest scenes reported was that of the DE GONIA family of St. Louis. Four of the family of six were killed, and the father is reported dying in a St. Louis hospital. Three of the DE GONIA children, RALPH, aged 6, MELVIN, 5, and ROBERT, 14 months, lay dead to the right of their father before he could be removed, and MRS. DE GONIA lay dead to his left. MR. DE GONIA in his delirium clasped his infant son to his breast, repeating between groans of pain, "Thank God, BOBBY, we're all alive."
In the confusion, several bodies were hustled on the relief trains before being checked leaving the number of dead uncertain. Many of the bodies could not be identified because their effects had been scattered over such a wide area.
The railroad tracks parallel the Mississippi River, and the trestle on which the disaster occurred spans Glaise Creek where it enters the river. As a result, a report was current that a number of bodies were washed into the Mississippi, but there was no way of verifying this report.
DR. W. W. HULL was the only physician administering to the injured for several hours until relief trains arrived. "Had I had some assistance we might have saved some of the dying," DR. HULL told a representative of the Associated Press. "At one time I was trying to treat twenty-five persons simultaneously."
The cries of the injured had to go unheeded in many cases. Mothers begged for news of their babies and children cried for their parents. One 14-months-old child, unable to tell her name, was found a mile from the scene of the disaster asking for "Mama." A woman from St. Louis took her in charge.
Rescue work was hampered by lack of light. This village is without electricity and the rescue workers and morbidly curious made their way among the mass of twisted steel and crumpled wooden coaches by the aid of kerosene torches and candles.
Thousands of persons visited the scene late last night and today, the roads were blocked for three miles. DR. HULL said bodies were found 300 feet from the scene of the accident. One body was buried waist deep in a bog. DR. GEORGE W. ELDERS, Coroner of Jefferson County, said a thorough investigation of the accident would be made.

Pathetic Scenes in St. Louis.
St. Louis, Mo., Aug. 6 (Associated Press). -- The Union Station here was a scene of horror this morning as trains No. 32 and No. 4 pulled in with the survivors and victims of the Sulphur Springs disaster. Relatives and friends of victims stormed the gates at the train sheds and pleaded with the police to permit them to enter. Faces reflecting the terror of an anticipated death or injury peered through the grating in an effort to catch a glimpse of shrouded bodies as they were taken to waiting automobiles.
Ambulances were backed to the coaches when the trains arrived, and the injured were rushed to hospitals.
MISS LENNIE WALKER, a waitress, 19 years old, of St. Louis, was a heroine of the telescoped local, according to fellow passengers. She was a passenger of the third car from the rear of the local train. A steel-constructed coach was thrown from the train when the crash occurred.
Of the thirty-odd passengers in this car MISS WALKER and two men were the only persons not seriously injured or temporarily disabled. They cleared the coach of all the injured before other help arrived.
Speaking of the disaster, MISS WALKER said:
"The coach landed on the side I was sitting on, and I was not thrown, as were those sitting on the opposite side. When I found I had only been shaken and bruised, I was not frightened, and climbed out through a window on the upper side to see if the wreck was catching fire. I then crawled back and helped remove the injured."
MISS WALKER refused medical aid, and went to her home immediately after arriving in St. Louis.
The mail car of Train 4 was a charnel house on wheels. Fifteen dead, thirteen of whom were women and children, were piled in heaps on mail sacks. Seven survivors lay with the dead. One woman occupied a cot alongside eight female victims.
Willing hands helped carry the injured to ambulances as spectators seeking loved ones scanned their faces. The dead in the mail car were hauled to the city morgue in a furniture van.
A backward glance out of a car window proved fortunate for W. E. FOSTER of Herrin, Ill., who jumped from one of the coaches of No. 32 a moment before the collision.
FOSTER said he looked back and saw No. 4 rounding the curve back of No. 32 at a high rate of speed. He shouted a warning, ran to a vestibule and leaped out.
FOSTER said he was sliding down the embankment away from the tracks as No. 4 crashed into the train ahead. The coach from which FOSTER made his escape was demolished. FOSTER declared the engineer of No. 32 was attempting to get his train in motion at the moment of the collision.
Other passengers who escaped without injury in the wreck were unable to give a coherent account of the disaster when they reached St. Louis. A grinding shock, screams and a wild scramble for safety was all they could recall.

The New York Times New York 1922-08-07
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!