Glen Rock, WY Train Wreck, Sept 1923

FORTY BELIEVED DEAD IN WYOMING TRAIN WRECK; THREE BODIES RECOVERED

RAGING COAL CREEK HALTS RESCUE WORK

PASSENGERS BURIED UNDER DEBRIS AS TRAIN GOES INTO STREAM.

FEAR TO HOIST CARS

Hundreds Visit Scene of Wreck and See Imprisoned Victims, Unable to Give Aid.

By The Associated Press
CASPER, Wyo., Sept. 28. – Upward of two score persons perished Thursday night when Chicago, Burlington & Quincy passenger train No. 30 broke through a small bridge spanning Coal Creek, fifteen miles east of Casper, Wyo., rescue workers estimated Friday night, although only three bodies have actually been found.

The plunge of the engine, baggage car, smoked, chair car and one Pullman coach through the bridge, weakened by the lashing current of the usually placid little stream caused by recent heavy rains, imprisoned the occupants of these cars who had little opportunity to escape.
Rescue parties were hampered Friday night by snow and rain which started shortly after the wreck and has continued unabated while workmen stand helplessly on the banks of the raging little stream whose force during the day caused the submerged cars with their grim burden to settle still deeper into the creek bead.

Plunge to Destruction.
The crack Casper-Denver train hurrying through the storm at reduced speed is believed by railroad men to have started its plunge to destruction as the engine hit the first span of the bridge. The baggage coach apparently slid into the current on top of the engine and was crushed like an egg shell. The smoker, where greatest loss of life is believed to have occurred, was completely submerged. One end of the chair car was lifted out of the water by resting on the smoker, and this helped to save those in this car. One Pullman coach came to rest on the bank of the stream with one end in the water. Four men in the Pullman smoker are reported to have been caught in this death trap.

Believe Forty Dead.
No additional bodies were recovered from the wreck Friday afternoon and the known dead consists of NICHOLAS SCHMETTZ of Douglas, Wyo.; D. E. SCHULTZ of Casper, a baggageman, and an unidentified man who was beating his way on the tracks of the baggage car. It is impossible to accurately estimate the total toll of lives taken by the wreck. Generally a conservative estimate of dead is believed to be forty. Some persons maintain many other lost their lives, while railroad officials say fewer persons were lost.

The death figure probably will not be known for many days.

Out of approximately eighty persons believed to have been passengers on the train about forty have been accounted for in the list of dead and survivors. The estimate is based on statements made by passengers who passed through the day coaches prior to the wreck. These coaches are still submerged.

Flood Handicaps Workers.
Newspaper men returning from the scene of the wreck said no more bodies would be recovered until Saturday morning, due to the high flood waters. The flood current of the creek is running about seventy-five feet wide and has shown no signs of receding.

Hundreds of people visited the scene of the wreck Friday and silently viewed the tangled mass of steel and wood in the stream. They gazed at the wrecked express car and saw the legs of a man clad in faded blue overalls, the feet dangling in the water. In the vestibule of the same car the body of a man hanging face downward, could be seen. And, while they stood helpless, unable to reach the victims, the angry current roared over the sides of the car.

To attempt to reach the imprisoned bodies meant death in the swollen stream.

Father of Firemen Cries.
Arrangement had been completed to erect derricks and hoist the cars with their toll from the stream, but this plan was abandoned through fear that coaches would be broken and bodies lost. As a result they will remain all night in the watery tomb and plans will be laid to explore them with the arrival of daybreak Saturday, when it is probable that they will be uncovered.

Survivors removed from the flood on the east bank were taken to Douglas, while those removed from Pullman on the west were brought to Casper. For the most part those brought here remained in Pullmans at the Burlington station until they could be provided with clothing, many having abandoned theirs on the sleeper.

The creek into which the train plunged without warning, after leaving Casper at 8:35 Thursday night, is ordinarily dry, but had been swelled to the proportions of a river by a cloudburst which followed heavy rains that had continued for the last to days.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas 29 Sept 1923

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USES BELL CORD TO SAVE SIX PASSENGERS
By The United News.
GLEN ROCK, Wyo., Sept. 28. – A bell cord was used to rescue six passengers from the partially submerged Pullman of Burlington passenger train No. 30 after ins plunge into Cole Creek Thursday night.
John Cristle, oil driller of Glen Rock, cut the cord on the car, climbed to the roof and threw one end ashore. There a heavy rope was attached and pulled back to the car. After five other passengers had been sent safely ashore Cristle climbed hand over hand to safety. All were rushed to a hotel in Glen Rock and given emergency treatment.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas 29 Sept 1923

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LOSES OWN LIFE IN RACE TO BED OF HIS DYING BOY.
By The Associated Press.
DENVER, Colo., Sept. 28. – RUSSELL T. GIERHART, who had died from injuries in the Burlington wreck near Casper, Wyo., Thursday night, was racing with death when he lost his life. Gierhart was trying to reach the bedside of his little 5-year-old son, Fred Bernard Gierhart, dangerously of scarlet fever here.

The lad’s condition took a turn for the worse Thursday and Mrs. Gierhart telegraphed for her husband to come home. He left Casper for Denver last night. The local office of the Burlington Railroad confirmed his death Friday. The boy’s condition is grave.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas 29 Sept 1923

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HEROISM SEEN AMID DANGERS OF WRECKAGE

CASPER, Wyo., Sept. 28. – Three persons Friday emerged as heroic figures of Thursday night’s wreck on the Burlington, fifteen miles west of here, in connection with the rescue passengers from Pullman car No. 30, which was up-ended in the flood waters and toppled into the stream. These men are L. D. Coburn, Pullman conductor; M. A. Robinson, Salida, Colo., and D. L. Littleton, porter.

Three times Coburn and Robinson flirted with death as the car balanced on the brink of the slippery bank. A rope made of bell cord was used to guide them to the rescue of men imprisoned on their births. As a result of their efforts, many lived to tell the story of the heroic rescues.

Men Stare Death in Face.
In the half submerged Pullman Conductor L. D. Coburn and W. A. Robinson clung to the bell cord to reach people who were brought out in safety. Death stared the men in the face as they descended into the car three times. The Pullman late toppled into the stream and was completely submerged.

With flashes of lightning through downpouring rain to relieve the darkness and the headlight of a locomotive shedding a glare on the flood, a rope was strung from the end of a partially submerged day coach to the bank and over it passengers who had not been drowned, moved hand over hand to reach safety on the bank.

“Hell I’ll Never Forget.”
“Piled up cars, wretched people and the lightning flashing through the rain made a hell I will never forget,” declared Dan H. McQuade of Denver, who telephoned first news of the disaster from the Chicago and Northwestern station in the big muddy oil field. “I have been in three bad wrecks, but this is the worst of all,” he added.

At the same time that McQuade was telephoning the news to the Mayor of Glenrock, Henry Wyatt, pioneer resident of Casper, reached a telephone on the highway a mile distant and informed the Casper office of the Burlington of the disaster.

Hand Over Hand to Safety.
A rescue train from Casper arrived at the scene of the wreck at 11 p. m. and immediately it was seen that the chance of rescue was by means of a rope arrangement strung from the east bank.

There were from twenty to twenty-four persons on top of the sleeper, all begging to be rescued.

The most thrilling portion of the rescue scene then ensued. A big cable rope obtained at the Big Muddy oil field, was thrown over to the marooned sleepers. With the headlight of the locomotive of the relief train playing on the scene, the slow process of rescue in this manner proceeded. Men, women and children went hand-over-hand from the sleeper to the east bank, a distance of more than 150 feet. Several times women lost one hand-hold of the rope, only to regain their balance and save themselves from dropping into the sweeping waters.

Brings Baby in His Arms.
After their perilous trip across the water, several women fell into a dead faint and had to be carried to waiting cars. A man carried a baby in his arms from the marooned car to the bank and almost miraculously effected a rescue.

George Evenson, a railroader, who was a passenger in the rear Pullman, described the wreck as one of quiet horror, in which the cries of the victims, if there were any, were stifled and smothered by the flood waters that closed over them.

H. D. Bellrose of Denver, first reported as missing, was thrown into the water from the Pullman in which he was riding, was washed into the Platte River and saved himself by clinging to a railroad tie, with the aid of which he reached shore in the darkness.

Gus G. Phillips of Barber, Ok., crawled over the engine in his escape from one of the submerged coaches and was badly burned. He will live, it is believed.

Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas 29 Sept 1923
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Transcribed by Jenni Lanham. Thank you, Jenni!