Wreck on the Wabash: The 1901 Railroad Disaster in Lenawee County, Michigan, by Laurie C. Dickens (TPB, 2001, $1.50)
Train wrecks, we still have them, but at least we usually know how many people die. Not so in 1901. On Thanksgiving Eve two steam engines crashed head on in a rural part of Michigan. The heavier train would run right over the lighter one! Eight people died from the heavier train. Fifteen would be reported dead from the other. The eight were all American citizens. The fifteen were thought to be Italian immigrants, probably here illegally, or at least without papers.
The cause of the crash is still partially unknown. One of the engineers misread his orders. One of the trains was running incredibly late. One of the engines had the newly invented electric light at its front, which made estimating distances between trains difficult at best. Probably it was a combination of all three.
What is known is how flimsy the cars carrying the immigrants were. The immigrants were packed together like the proverbial sardines. (It didn't matter because immigrants were supposed to be used to awful conditions.) Immigrants were probably even packed into baggage and smoking cars. After the crash, the lighter immigrant cars telescoped so severely that most wood splintered into small pieces. Many people were killed immediately. Some were not so lucky. Spilled kerosene heaters immediately set the wood cars on fire, and those trapped inside burned to death.
We will never how many died that day. There were no records of how many immigrants were on the train. The 1800 plus degree heat of the fire melted window glass, distorted steel, and turned bodies into white ash. To get the tracks open for regular traffic, the train wreckage was hurridly shoved off the track. If any bones survived the fire, they were certainly destroyed by the move off the tracks. So... no way to count the number of dead.
Amazingly, the railroad company never lost its reputation for safety! Accidents where people died were expected, and accepted.
Only recently, when records from Ellis Island were collected, was it known that 200 Italians arrived together on a boat just prior to the train's departure from NYC. How many of those 200 headed west on the doomed train will never be known, but the estimation is now 100. Of those, how many died? Again, no one knows, but certainly more than the reported 15.
But what difference did it make? After all, those other dead were only poor immigrants They probably didn't even speak English. (So was the thinking of the day!)
Think of the families left behind, many of them still in Italy. Can you imagine anything worse than to never know what had happened to your loved one, especially one who might have been the main breadwinner of a large family? Look for this sad book on the new non-fiction table, avail. 3/1. (GNF)
