BUT SEVEN WRECK VICTIMS

Wabash Disaster Not as Death-dealing as First Supposed.

CONDUCTOR COPELAND MAY DIE

Seriously Wounded, But Injuries o[sic] Others Only Slight--Fatalities Limited to Train and Postal Men.

KANSAS City, Mo., June 27.---Seven coffins were forwarded to St. Louis today from Missouri City. They contained the remains of victims of last night's wreck on the Wabash road. A correct list of the dead is as follows:

W. S. MILLS, postal clerk, St. Louis.
O. M. SMITH, postal clerk, St. Louis.
GUSTAVE A SMITH, postal clerk, St. Louis.
CHARLES WINTERS, postal clerk, St Louis.
F. W. BRINK, postal clerk, St. Louis.
EDWARD GRINDROO, baggagemaster, St. Louis.
CHARLES P. GREASLEY, brakeman, St. Louis.

The conductor of the train, G. C. Copeland of St. Louis, who was reported laast night among the dead, is still alive. He was removed this morning to the railroad hospital at Moberly. With a fractured skull and serveral broken ribs he lingers between life and death, but the surgeons express a hope that he will recover. Conductor Copeland was supposed to be dead when taken from the wreck, and his body, with a handkerchief drawn over the face, was ranged in a row with the seven corpses. A few minutes later some one observed a sign of life and he was quickly transferred to a stretcher and given every posssible attention.

OTHER INJURIES SLIGHT.

Of the nineteen others injured not one is in critical condition. Among them all there is not one broken limb, though many of them were thrown three-quarters of the length of the coaches in which they were riding. Mrs. W. H. Wilkinson of Kansas City is the most seriously hurt. Two small bones of her left hand are broken, and she suffered a severe laceration of the thigh, as well as bruises about the face and neck. The wounds of most of the others are trivial.

All indications are that death came to at least four of the five unfortunate mail clerks almost instantly. Their car pitched end first through the break in the trestle, and they must have been drowned in the raging stream while in an unconscious condition. The remains of the four were carried from the wreck and were recovered some distance down the stream. There were signs of life in the body of the fifth mail clerk, when the rescuers dragged him from the wreck, but he died a few minutes later on the bank of the creek.

BRAVE ACT UNVAILING.

A neighboring farmer noticed the perilous condition of the trestle an tried to flag the passenger train, which he knew to be about due. For nearly an hour he stood in the terrific downpour of rain, only to fail at last in his good intentions, for when the Wabash company's New York last mail came thundering on the storm was almost blinding and the engineer evidently cound not see the signal which the farmer so frantically waved across the track. The engine passed over but the tender went through with the tumbling bridge. The baggage car toppled off on its side, while the mail car pitched into the stream end first. Every life in this car was lost.

The smoker, next behind, followed. It was in this car that Conductor Copeland was ruling. The other occupants escaped serious injury. The chair car next behind also plunged in upon the mass of wreckage end first, and all its passengers were thrown to the forward end in an indescribable heap. How they escaped with no more serious injury is a mystery which all the passengers in this coach are puzzled over. The front end of the sleeper, next in the rear, jammed into the protruding end of the chair car, and was thus prevented from following the others into the stream. The two coaches in the rear remained on the track.

The scene of the wreck which is but twenty-one miles northwest of Kansas City, near Missouri City station, was visited today by many persons. A wercking train worked there all day, repairing the trestle and raising the shattered coaches, and tonight trains are moving over the road as usual.

The postal authorities report that probably nearly all of the mail carried on the train was lost or destroyed.

The Wabash train each evening carries all of Kansas City's afternoon mail for the east, and it is always heavy and valuable.

The Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, NE 28 Jun 1897
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!