Friday, March 29, 2024 Mar 29, 2024
60° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Publications

RETRO A Smashing Idea

When the Katy Railroad needed a boost, he met the challenge-head on.
By Tom Peeler |

IN THE 189OS, LIKE TODAY, A BIG crash was a cinch to grab the headlines. The problem, Tor an enterprising proto-PR man like Willy Crush, was that no one ever knew when one was going to happen. Crush, who moved to Dallas as a passenger agent for the Katy Railroad in the mid-1890s, thought he could change that. He should have left well enough alone.

Crush decided to make a name for himself with the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroad by staging a huge train wreck. In 1896, he journeyed to St. Louis to persuade Katy president Henry C. Rouse to go along with the stunt. Rouse was hesitant at first; business was bad enough without intentionally destroying two perfectly good engines. But Crush showed the president how he could turn a $40,000 profit with a “free” promotion and flood the company with good will to boot.

The key, Willy figured, was to hold the wreck so far out of town that the only way to get there was by buying a train ticket. Crush selected a site seventy-five miles south of Dallas on the line to Waco and set the ticket price at two dollars for the round trip. Two aging Baldwin engines were rounded up for the sacrifice, and all that remained was to entice 20,000 spectators.

The engines, rechristened the “999” and the “1001,” were decked out with new paint jobs.

Crush commissioned dramatic “Before and After” lithographic depictions of the upcoming crash. “Before” showed the two engines hurtling head-on toward the inevitable, and “After” was a drawing of a pile of smoking rubble. The lithographs were sent all over the country and prompted many encouraging responses, including one from Thomas Edison, who said he would send his assistant to record the event on a new motion picture machine that he had just developed.

Tuesday, September 15, 1896, was to be the day. For ticketing purposes, a nominal designation was needed for the pasture where the wreck would be held. Willy came up with the perfect name-he called it “Crush.”

Ticket sales were brisk. The Katy announced that four special trains from Dallas would be added to the regular schedule.

Tuesday’s headline in The Dallas Morning News proclaimed “They Are All Ready,” and indeed they were. People lined up before daylight to board the first special and stepped off onto the half-mile-long makeshift platform at Crush at 10 a.m., six hours before the scheduled crash. The Katy had hauled in five tank cars of artesian water and several tons of ice. Leo Wolfsen, an entrepreneurial Dallasite, set up twelve lemonade stands on the grounds.

Freak shows and fortune tellers lined a midway-like esplanade, and Barney Gibbs, a popular politician and ex-lieutenant governor from Dallas, was orating up the hill.

The crowd, estimated at 30.000, exceeded Crush’s wildest expectations. At the appointed hour, Crush and 300 special officers began to herd the crowd back past the “safe line,” a hundred yards or so from the track. This took about an hour and was followed by a roar from the crowd as the two engines crept into view.

Each of the engines, painted like Christmas toys, pulled six boxcars, these in turn painted with colorful advertisements for the Texas State Fair, the new Oriental Hotel in Dallas, and of course the Katy Flyer, the line’s high-speed special to the Indian Territory. After the ceremonial politeness, the engines backed away until they were out of sight of most of the spectators.

Crush, astride a prancing white stallion, signaled for the engineers to pour on the coals. They locked the throttles, and when the locomotives hit about fifteen miles an hour, the engineers jumped. Then the engines were in full view, forty miles an hour, then fifty, both barreling downhill. People were on tiptoe trying to improve their view. Instinctively, at the last moment, many realized that the “safe line’1 was much too close to the track. Mothers grabbed their children by the arms and turned to flee. Then the crowd heard the sickening sound of metal hurtling against metal.

An instant after the impact, both boilers exploded, sending a red and green shower of scrap iron down on the helpless audience. Ernest Darnell, who had climbed a mesquite tree for a better view, was felled with a deadly blow from a section of brake chain. Dewitt Barnes was killed by a flying fragment of metal. Emma Overstreet, who was nearly a quarter of a mile away, was struck and killed by a two-foot length of timber.

Many more were seriously injured. J.W. Rector, Mr. Edison’s motion picture machine operator, said that he would participate in no more such harebrained undertakings.

The Katy Railroad generously settled all claims, the total of which far exceeded the proceeds from the event. Willy Crush was fired, virtually on the spot, but was later given a reprieve. He returned to Dallas and worked for the Katy another forty years.

A twenty-eight-year-old itinerant piano player composed The Great Crush Collision March to commemorate the disaster, but had no success selling it. The pianist, Scott Joplin, had better luck a couple of years later with Maple Leaf Rag.

Related Articles

Local News

Leading Off (3/29/24)

Looks like we have a beautiful Easter weekend ahead.
Image
Business

Alternative Wealth Partners Launches $150 Million Investment Fund

Plus: Parking software and solutions company ParkHub merges with U.K.-based JustPark, Spark Spot acquires land for EV charging station in Carrollton, and more.
Image
Arts & Entertainment

Here’s Who Is Coming to Dallas This Weekend: March 28-31

It's going to be a gorgeous weekend. Pencil in some live music in between those egg hunts and brunches.
Advertisement