Iowa's Great Train Wreck

The most tragic train wreck in Iowa history occurred nearly 100 years ago and it didn't even include the collision of two trains. Instead, it was one train, a combination of two, that ran off the tracks north of Green Mountain in Marshall County on March 21, 1910.

The Rock Island train, steaming from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo by way of Marshalltown along the Great Western Tracks, simply ran off the rails and into the ground. But the impact of the lead car, a coal and water tender for a locomotive, as it traveled along at 23 mph and then came to an immediate halt as it slammed into an embankment caused the train to "telescope." Heavier steel Pullman cars sliced through two wooden coaches, one a smoking car and the other, a car that held women and children.

The wreck killed 52 people and injured another 39, most of them from Cedar Rapids and Eastern Iowa. (See today's Ramblin' column in The Gazette.)

As you can see at left, the news of the tragic accident swept the nation and prompted The Gazette to put out a special "extra" edition that night.

I went over to Marshalltown to visit with Dave Shearer, 47, a local historian and preacher at the Church of Christ in Marshalltown. He became interested in history in seventh grade when he prepared a report on the history of Marshalltown and his teacher used his report as a teaching tool thereafter. "I always liked to take the time to check out things, what was here, what was there," he says.

Dave has since collected something like 1,300 historical postcards about Marshall County including 80 of the train wreck. There's nothing like seeing the result of the wreck, the wood cars reduced to kindling, the bodies covered in sheets, the crowd gathered to see what happened or to identify the next of kin.

Dave's research shows one of two things happened to cause the wreck -- either the tender simply jumped the tracks or a rail came loose or was broken. But not official cause was ever released and nobody faced any charges of neglect. This, he agrees, was simply a freak accident. And what an accident it was.

The news accounts are very graphic, such as this from The Gazette special edition as Dan Clark of Cedar Falls told of the crash:

"Mr. Clark said that women were pinned between the walls of the two cars, their heads protruding from the broken edges. Many of these were still living, some of them having strength enough only to gasp, while others moaned. Blood flowed everywhere, sprinkling down upon those who were pinned under the seats. Mr. Clark and Mr. Wycoff (another witness) had their clothes saturated with blood.

"The two men say the sight was so horrible that many of those who were not injured fainted from horror. The women screamed, the men moaned and from the outside came the excited cries of those who came from the ten coaches that escaped the wreck. Axes and crowbars were brought and a hundred men were working passionately, tearing up the wood in order to relive the sufferers."

Another witness, a J.W. May from Albert Lea, Minn., said, "The scenes in the wrecked cars were too awful to describe. People were caught under broken timbers and seats and the three forward cars were simply a mass of smashed timbers and dead and dying people.

"There were some remarkable deeds of heroism shown by the injured. For instance, myself and another man found a lady who seemed to be badly injured and having found a bottle of whiskey I asked her to take a swallow. She told me to give it to a man who was lying near her and groaning terribly, stating that she believed he was hurt worse than she was. I went over to the man and gave him a swallow of the whiskey, and when I returned to the woman she was dead and I found that her body was a mass of wounds where splinters and pieces of wood had entered her back.

"Many of the people in the day coach were crushed to a shapeless mass and it was not uncommon to find a portion of a body in one place and the other part in another."

Among the dead from Cedar Rapids were Jacob Nauholz, conductor; Ross charter, brakeman; George Ross, fireman; R.S. Robinson, engineer; Archie Price, porter; T.G. Getts, commercial traveler; and Another Philips, architect.

A list of those killed in an account you can read by clicking here has been added to the end of this report. Maybe you'd recognize the names of those killed in the worst train wreck in Iowa history.

LOREN ALLSCHLAGER, Ogden, Ia.

A.P. ADAMS, Wilmar, Minn., identification incomplete

J. BAMBRIDGE, Toronto, Ont.

LOUIE BIEBUCK, Muscatine, Ia.

THOMAS G. BETTS, traveling man, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

GEORGE P. BUNT, Waterloo, Ia.

ALFRED X. BROWN, Waterloo, Ia.

MRS. ALFRED X. BROWN, Waterloo, Ia.

FRED COLTON, Washington, Ia.

R. E. CHARTER, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

MRS. WALTER DAVIS, Waterloo, Ia.

C. G. EVES, West Branch, Ia.

W. W. EGGERS, Waterloo, Ia.

F.F. FISHER, West Branch, Ia.

WILLIAM FLECK, Vinton, Ia.

DAVID FAUST, Dalhart, Tex, partial identification

J. S. GOODNOUGH, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

MAY HOFFMAN, Waterloo, Ia.

N. C. HEACOCK, West Liberty, Ia.

FRANK HEINZ or HURTZ, Muscatine, Ia.

CAESAR C. HOFF, Burlington, Ia.

DR. LEWIS, woman physician, Haley Junction, Ia.

F. D. LYMAN, Waterloo, Ia.

MRS. B. G. LYMAN, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

EARL T. MAINE, Williamsfield, Ia.

J. NAUHOLZ, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

MRS. PEATS, Gladbrook, Ia.

BESSIE PURVIS, Washington, Ia.

ARCHIE PRICE, colored, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

MILTON PARRISH, Cedarville, Mo.

ANTHONY PHILLIPS, Waterloo, Ia.

H. L. PENNINGTON, Galesburg, Ia.

L. W. PARRISH, Cedar Falls, Ia.

R. B. ROBINSON, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

GEORGE ROSS, Cedar Rapids, Ia.

ROBERT L. TANGEN, Northwood, Ia.

E. M. WORTHINGTON, address unknown.

WILLIAM WARD, West Branch, Ia.

ANDREW J. WHITE, colored St. Paul, Minn.

MISS JENNIE YOUNG, Vinton, Ia.

A. X. BROWN, wife and two daughters, of Waterloo, Ia.

BESSIE SERVICE of Washington, Ia.

M. B. KENNEDY, of Burlington, Ia.