Crush, Texas, September 15, 1896-At a little after 5:00 PM, two locomotives, each travelling at a speed of 45 miles per hour, collided head-on in the town of Crush, Texas.  The crash was intentional and had been anxiously anticipated by a crowd of at least 30,000 people who had been waiting all day. It was a publicity stunt by the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad and had been highly successful up until the engines actually collided. In fact the Crush Collision might have become an annual event if the first one hadn’t resulted in at least one death and nine serious injuries.[more]

The plan was conceived by William George Crush, General Passenger Agent of the M. K. & T. (Katy) Railroad. The trains were pulling too many empty passenger cars and Crush was looking for a way to fill them. Having observed that train wrecks always drew large crowds, he hit on the idea of staging his own. He may also have been inspired by a train wreck staged earlier that year by the Cleveland and Hocking Valley Railroad, near Cleveland, Ohio, that drew 40,000 spectators.

Crush chose a long flat stretch of land just north of Waco. It was a natural amphitheater surrounded on three sides by mountains. He set up a makeshift town— not unlike the temporary “hell-on-wheels” towns set up during railroad construction—and named it after himself: Crush, Texas. The collision was scheduled for 4:00 PM on September 15 and advertised by posters and newspaper ads throughout Texas. A passenger could ride to Crush from anywhere on the Katy line for $2.00.

Trains started arriving at Crush at 10:00 on the 15th and every five minutes after that another train would arrive. A crowd of at least 30,000 came to watch the collision. Some estimates were as high as 50,000 people which would have made Crush the largest city in Texas for that day. A tent provided by Ringling Brothers Circus served as a restaurant and ice water was made available. Lemonade stands and carnival games were set up, and Texas politicians took the opportunity to make stump speeches. Though McLennan County was officially dry, large amounts of whiskey were consumed.

The crowd grew restless when 4:00 arrived and there was no collision. 200 hired constables held the spectators back as William Crush rode in front on a white horse threatening to cancel the show if they did not settle down.  He was waiting for the arrival of several more trains.  Finally at ten past five, Crush waved his hat signaling the engineers to start the show.

Two outdated diamond stack locomotives each pulling six boxcars gradually approached each other for a symbolic “handshake.” One engine painted red with green trim was numbered 999; the other green with red trim was numbered 1001. The boxcars bore advertisements for Ringling Brothers Circus and the Oriental Hotel (“The only modern hotel in Dallas.”) The trains backed up to their starting points then when the signal was given set off, full-tilt, towards each other. Each engineer forced the throttle and whistle open then jumped off the train. Torpedoes set along the track fired as each locomotive passed. Going a combined speed of 90 miles per hour, the two engines collided.  They angled upward, like two stallions fighting as the train cars behind telescoped into each other. Then, counter to what Crush had been assured by his engineers, the boilers exploded.

Amid the smoke and steam, timber bolts and pieces of hot iron- from entire boiler plates to shards of shrapnel-filled the air. People in the crowd struck by the debris suffered fractured skulls and broken bones. A flying bolt took out the right eye of photographer J. C. Dean. 19-year-old Earnest Darnelle who had been watching from a tree was struck by five feet of heavy chain.  He fell to earth, his head nearly severed.

The crowd stood in silence for several seconds as chaos ensued all around them. Then all at once, those still standing, rushed to the crash to grab souvenirs.  At 6:00 return trains began leaving.

The M. K. & T. railroad cleaned up the mess and dismantled the town of Crush forever. They paid all claims without a fight. William George Crush was fired as General Passenger Agent, but it was all for show; he was hired back the next day.

Composer Scott Joplin may have been in the crowd that day.  He wrote a song, “The Great Crush Collision March” commemorating the event.

A group of homeless New York Newsboys.

The rapid population expansion of New York City in the years following the Civil War was accompanied by an equally rapid expansion of in the population of homeless boys sleeping in alleys and living hand-to-mouth on the city streets. Sometimes taking to the streets to escape abusive fathers, sometimes abandoned by unwed mothers, the waifs had no family connections and no identities beyond the nicknames they gave each other. Though tough and ruggedly independent, to a great extent they survived by taking care of each other.

There were two classes of homeless boys – “street arabs” and “gutter-snipes.” Street arabs were the older, stronger boys. Sturdy and self-reliant, they were always ready to fight for what was theirs, and ready, as well, to fight for the weaker gutter-snipes who looked to them for protection. Gutter-snipes were younger boys—sometimes as young as four or five—brutalized by abusive parents and left to the dangers of the street until they find the protection of an older boy. In time the gutter-snipe would harden into a full-fledged arab with snipes of his own.

The most enterprising of these boys—both street arabs and gutter-snipes—became newsboys hawking the many competitive daily newspapers sold on the streets of the city. Being a newsie required a considerable amount of self-discipline. A newsie had to wake before dawn and arrive at the newspaper with enough money in his pocket to pay for the papers he would be hawking throughout the day. During the regular course of business, they respected each other’s turf and would not interfere with another boys clientele. But a fire, a brawl or any other event that drew a crowd would also draw newsboys competing directly with each other.

A number of societies and agencies were established to aid the homeless boys of New York but the boys were extremely independent and suspicious of handouts. Better to sleep outside than to risk being trapped and taken the House of Refuge. The most successful aid organization was the Newsboy’s Lodging House which offered a bed and bath for six cents a night and a hot supper for four cents. Skeptical at first, the boys came to view the Lodging House as their hotel. Rules were minimal, a gymnasium was available for their use, and reading lessons were provided for those interested.

But even with affordable lodging, many of the boys preferred sleeping outside. They were avid theatre goers and given the choice between a warm bed and a ticket to a play or vaudeville show were likely to choose the latter. Alcohol, gambling and the rest of the urban vices worked to drive the older boys from the straight and narrow.  Though the Newsboy’s Lodging House could boast of many triumphs, including homeless boys who went on to graduate from great universities, more often the lessons learned on the street prepared the boys for the fastest growing occupation in the city— crime.

Sources

• Campbell, Helen, Thomas Wallace Knox, and Thomas Byrnes. Darkness and daylight, or, Lights and shadows of New York life: a woman's pictorial record of gospel, temperance, mission, and rescue work "in His Name" .... Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington, 1897.
• Needham, Geo. C.. Street Arabs and gutter snipes The pathetic and humorous side of young vagabond life in the great cities, with records of work for their reclamation.. Boston: D.L. Guernsey, 1884.