Thjis video appeared on Channel 5 in Raleigh: http://www.wral.com/lifestyles/travel/video/14822403/
Here is another reprint of the Buffalo Bill Train Wreck that took place in 1901.
Famous train wreck of 1901 revisited | |
Publication | Salisbury Post |
Date | January 22, 2007 |
Section(s) | Area |
Page | b1 |
Byline | |
Brief | Photo:69384,left,;By Buddy Gettys, for the Salisbury Post Earl was the scrawniest-looking guy you would ever see chasing a moving railroad car. A little chicken-headed fellow with dirty reddish hair that stuck out of his striped railroad cap |
By Buddy Gettys, for the Salisbury Post Earl was the scrawniest-looking guy you would ever see chasing a moving railroad car. A little chicken-headed fellow with dirty reddish hair that stuck out of his striped railroad cap and curled around his ears. No one knew his last name or where he came from. He claimed to have been a hobo for 28 of his 42 years and was often seen in freight yards along the East Coast of the United States. He chained-smoked Chesterfields and drank Wild Irish Rose to clear his cough. During the summer and fall of 1901, Earl traveled with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, sleeping on the straw in boxcars and cleaning up after the animals. Working was not something he favored, but during this period of his life, he was driven by his admiration for Annie Oakley. Being with the show allowed him to see Annie almost every day. Earl even volunteered to let her shoot a half-smoked Chesterfield from his lips at 50 paces, but given Earl's sudden and unpredictable movements, she politely declined. The Wild West Show was owned and operated by 55-year-old Col. William F. Cody, affectionately known as "Buffalo Bill," a name that reflected his life story. For four days, the show had played in Charlotte to large crowds. It was the first trip ever for the show in the Carolinas. Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, Oct. 29, the show, consisting of 1,200 workers and participants, moved out of the Queen City on two Southern Railway trains for a night trip to Danville, Va. Danville would be their last show of the season. Cody had immediately bedded down in his club car at the rear of the second train driven by engineer Bud Rollin of Atlanta. The train had 21 cars and carried mostly ring performers and stock. Annie Oakley and Earl were also on the second train. Annie, only 5 feet tall, curled up in a seat in a small passenger car and fell asleep. Earl was nestled in a pile of straw on the floor of an empty cattle car. The night was cool with a hint of moisture. A bright moon moving in and out of dark clouds pulsated through the cracks in the sides of the cattle car in rhythm with the clickity-clack of the wheels. Earl's white face with a scattershot of freckles on his cheeks appeared, then disappeared as the moonlight flashed over him. Earl was tired and restless. It had been a dull, dark day with clouds hanging oppressively low in the sky. He had worked hard after the show loading the animals and equipment for the trip north. The two locomotives rushed impetuously through the night about 30 minutes apart, leaving curtains of blue smoke in their wake. A dog yipped at a crossing. The whistles from the 10-wheel locomotives cut sharply through the darkness of the night. Engineer unaware Seventy-seven miles north of Charlotte, Engineer Frank Lynch of Salisbury maneuvered steam locomotive No. 75 through the town of Thomasville. The big engine, pulling 30 or more freight cars loaded with fertilizer, moved south on the north-south main line. Lynch had received a wire from the dispatcher at the Salisbury Depot to pull off the main line to a side track near Lexington and allow an approaching show train to pass. Apparently, Lynch was not aware of a second train. When the first train passed, the engineer pulled his freight train back onto the track. Three miles past Lexington, near Linwood, Lynch saw the headlight of the fast approaching second show train. It was too late to stop. Crews, including both engineers, Lynch and Rollin, jumped from the locomotives, landing along the swampy banks of Swearing Creek. The two engines, running approximately 45 mph and weighing 75 tons each, crashed head-on. "They seemed to devour each other," stated the Lexington Dispatch of Oct. 30, 1901. "Railroad cars splintered into thousands of pieces." Earl was thrown from one end of the cattle car to the other as it rolled away from the wreckage. Staggering, almost unconscious, he slid open the squeaky side-door and stepped through the open space. Darkness and the smell of smoke, dust and dampness from the creek stretched in all directions. Not a sliver of a moon showed. It was 3:20 a.m. Earl made his way up the track to Annie Oakley's car. He found it crushed under twisted parts of the engine. Steam from the ruptured boiler would not let him get close to the wreckage. He assumed Annie was dead. Earl fell to the ground and cried. He was devastated. Dying animals moaned from the wrecked cars. Some show horses and cattle ran free in fields and woods along the track. People began to gather, their yellow lanterns twinkling like fireflies in the distance. The Lexington newspaper reported the next day that, "It was a horrible scene to look upon those fine horses mangled in every conceivable way. Of the 198 horses, 92 were killed. Some were lying in a mass of splinters and iron, badly injured. Col. Cody's favorite horse, Dan, was among the dead." Many animals escaped, and people in Linwood awoke the next morning to find horses and buffalo in their fields and yards. Drenched in grief, Earl walked south, stepping along the cross ties. When dawn sifted through the trees, he was approaching Spencer Shops. There he hopped a train where the western rails converged with the north-south main line. The train was headed for Chattanooga, Tenn. Annie Oakley was not dead. She was pulled from the wreckage and moved the next day to a hospital in Winston-Salem. She suffered a spinal injury that required five operations and left her partially paralyzed for a while. Although she recovered very well, Annie toured less frequently during the latter part of her career. Nonetheless, her shooting expertise did not wane and she continued to set records. In a shooting contest in Pinehurst in 1922, Annie hit 100 clay targets straight from a 16-yard mark. Annie died of pernicious anemia on Nov. 3, 1926, in Greenville, Ohio, at the age of 66. She was a legend in her own time. With most of the stock and equipment lost, the Wild West Show was out of business. Cody sued Southern Railway, and it looked for a while as if the final payoff would bankrupt the young company. But they recovered and became one of the leading railroads in the nation. Cody tried to get the show back on the road but lost it due to mismanagement and dubious investment schemes. William Cody died Jan. 10, 1917, at the age of 71 and is buried in a tomb blasted from solid rock at the summit of Lookout Mountain near Denver, Colo. It is believed that Earl died 10 months after the train wreck , when he jumped a rail car in Meridian, Miss., slipped on a wet rung and fell under the wheels of an approaching freight train. Earl died broken-hearted. He never knew that Annie Oakley had survived the crash of the Wild West Show Train. He carried her picture stuffed in the lining of his striped railroad cap. Earl had 50 cents and a half pack of Chesterfield cigarettes. He is buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mississippi. Writer's note: The above article is based on a true story. Information came from articles on file at the Rowan County Library History Room and from the Lexington Dispatch dated Oct. 30 and 31, 1901. Biographies of William Cody and Annie Oakley were found on the Internet. Buddy Gettys is a former mayor of Spencer and writes on occasion for the Post. | |
