East
Paris, Michigan
Train Wreck
December 1903
TWENTY-TWO KILLED.
Results of Pere Marquette Disaster Exceed First
Report.
Twenty-two persons dead and thirty-eight
seriously injured is the latest report regarding
Saturday night's disastrous wreck on the Pere
Marquette railway near East Paris, Mich.
In the head-on collision five cars and two
large locomotives were jammed into a space
ordinarily occupied by three coaches, and the
wreckage was strewn across the railroad right of
way from fence to fence.
According to statements made by officials of
the Pere Marquette, the westbound train was
traveling down grade at the rate of sixty miles
an hour. The eastbound train was climbing the
hill at a speed of forty miles an hour. The
former carried probably seventy-five passengers,
while the latter is believed to have been
carrying at least 125 persons.
The two trains collided at about the middle
of a long, sweeping curve three-quarters of a
mile west of East Paris. On the inner side of
the curve is a high embankment, preventing a
view of the track ahead. When the engines met
one turned completely over and lay with its nose
in a direction opposite to that in which it had
been traveling. The other climbed the wreckage
of the first, its boiler, torn from the trucks,
standing erect in the center of the debris.
Investigation by the Pere Marquette officials
into the cause of the wreck has brought out some
conflicting statements. Operator F. M. BOOTH at
McCords states most emphatically that when he
received orders to hold the westbound train at
McCords he immediately displayed the red light
and set the board against the approaching train.
Engineer WATERMAN, his fireman and Conductor
NEIL all state that the signal lamp was burning,
but that instead of a red light it displayed a
white light.
Ogdensburg Advance and St. Lawrence Weekly
Democrat New York 1904-01-01
Submitted & transcribed by Stu
Beitler Thank you,
Stu!
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