The Crash at Crush was a one-day

publicity stunt In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized, or set up by amateurs. Such events are frequently utiliz ...

in the U.S. state of

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

that took place on September 15, 1896, in which two uncrewed locomotives were crashed into each other head-on at high speed. William George Crush, general passenger agent of the

Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Southern Branch, it came to serve an exten ...

, conceived the idea in order to demonstrate a staged

train wreck A train accident or train wreck is a type of disaster involving one or more trains. Train wrecks often occur as a result of miscommunication, as when a moving train meets another train on the same track, when the wheels of train come off the ...

as a public

spectacle In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French ''spectacle'', itself a reflection of the ...

. No admission was charged, and train fares to the crash site – called Crush, set up as a temporary destination for the event – were offered at the reduced rate of 3.50 in 1896 (equivalent to $132.36 in 2025) from any location in Texas. As a result, an estimated 40,000 people – more people than the second-largest city in state at the time – attended the event. Unexpectedly, the impact caused both engine

boiler A boiler is a closed vessel in which fluid (generally water) is heated. The fluid does not necessarily boil. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications, including water heating, centra ...

s to explode, resulting in a shower of flying debris that killed two people and caused numerous injuries among the spectators.

Preparations

The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad (popularly known as the "Katy", from its "M-K-T" initials) had first reached the Crush area in the 1880s, during the construction of a route between

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

and

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

. As the railroad expanded, the Katy replaced its 30-ton steam engines with newer, more powerful 60-ton engines, and subsequently a stockpile of the older units, for which the railroad now had no use, began to accumulate. In 1896, Katy agent William Crush proposed a publicity stunt that could make use of the obsolete Katy trains to be held along the Dallas–Houston route at a site north of

Waco Waco ( ) is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a U.S. census estimated 2024 population of 146,608, making i ...

and south of the town of

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

, in

McLennan County McLennan County is a County (United States), county located on the Edwards Plateau in Central Texas. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 260,579. Its county seat and largest city is Waco, Texas, Waco. The U.S. c ...

. A locomotive crash staged by the Columbus and Hocking Valley Railroad at Buckeye Park near

Lancaster, Ohio Lancaster ( ) is a city in Fairfield County, Ohio, and its county seat. The population was 40,552 at the 2020 United States census, making it List of municipalities in Ohio, Ohio's 30th largest city, having surpassed Warren, Ohio, Warren and Fin ...

, on May 30, 1896, had been a huge success. Buckeye Park was established and owned by the railroad to entice residents of nearby Columbus to take weekend excursions. The locomotive crash was planned for the park's annual opening day and drew approximately 20,000 spectators. While no admission was charged, money was made on the railroad passenger traffic to and from the park. Crush imagined a similar spectacle for which Katy could advertise to thousands of potential passengers. Crush's superiors agreed to his proposal and put him in charge of the project. As with the crash at Buckeye Park, the event would be free of charge, instead profiting from the sale of tickets on special excursion trains that would run to and from the site. Two water wells were drilled at the site and a circus tent from Ringling Brothers was erected, as well as a grandstand, three speakers' stands, a platform for reporters, two

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

offices, and a special train depot, over which a giant sign proclaimed the new town as "Crush, Texas". Events from the

Midway Plaisance The Midway Plaisance, known locally as the Midway, is a Chicago parks, public park on the Neighborhoods of Chicago#South side, South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is one mile long by 220 yards wide and extends along 59th and 60th streets, joini ...

, including

lemonade stand A lemonade stand is a business that is commonly owned and operated by a child or children, to sell lemonade. The concept has become iconic of youthful summertime American culture to the degree that parodies and variations on the concept exist ...

s, carnival games,

medicine show Medicine shows were touring acts (traveling by truck, horse, or wagon teams) that peddled "miracle cure" patent medicines and other products between various entertainments. They developed from European Charlatan, mountebank shows and were common ...

s, cigar vendors and other sideshows were highly anticipated, with a

construction foreman A construction foreman is the worker or skilled tradesperson who is in charge of a construction crew. This role is generally assumed by a senior worker who is seasoned and competent in their field, but also capable of project leadership (oversigh ...

saying that "This feature alone will be worth going to Crush to see." A separate four-mile segment of track was built for the event alongside the Katy railroad so that there was no chance a runaway train could end up on the main line; each end of the track was situated atop a low hill on opposite sides of a bowl-shaped valley in which the trains would meet. The locomotives to be used were two decommissioned Baldwin engines, No. 999 and No. 1001.

Safety precautions

On the day before the exhibition, railroad officials staged a speed test of the engines to help predict the precise point of collision. Katy engineers assured Crush that his grand idea was safe, specifically that the

s on the steam engines had been designed to resist ruptures and that, even in a very high-speed crash, they were unlikely to explode. Each engine would pull six boxcars behind it; because the couplers used to link the cars were considered unreliable, the cars were chained together to prevent them from coming apart during the impact. Crush insisted on restricting the general public to a minimum of away from the track, but allowed members of the press to be within 100 yards. Katy officials expected a crowd of between 20,000 and 25,000 people to attend, but the clever marketing ploy was an overwhelming success and the railroad sold out more than 30 special excursion trains to the event.Allen Lee Hamilton.
Crash at Crush. Archived.
" ''

Handbook of Texas Online The Texas State Historical Association (TSHA) is an American nonprofit educational and research organization dedicated to documenting the history of Texas. It was founded in Austin, Texas, United States, on March 2, 1897. In November 2008, the ...

'', University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved on 2007-04-15.

Crash

The crash was delayed for an hour because the crowd resisted being pressed back by the police to what was supposedly a safe distance. At about 5 pm, the two trains, pulling cars loaded with

railroad tie A railroad tie, crosstie (American English), railway tie (Canadian English) or railway sleeper ( Australian and British English) is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties trans ...

s, slowly met in the middle of the track to be photographed. They were then rolled to their starting points at the opposite ends of the track. Crush, riding a white charger, signaled the start of the main event. The engineers and crew aboard each train opened the steam to a prearranged setting, rode for exactly four turns of the

driving wheel On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive). On a conventional, non-articulated locomotive, the driving wheels are all coupled t ...

s, and then jumped from the trains. The September 16 issue of ''

The Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation in 2022 of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885, by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ' ...

'' described what happened next: Each train reached a speed of about by the time they met near the anticipated spot, though some observers believed they were traveling much faster. Shortly after the trains collided, there was a large explosion: Debris was blown hundreds of feet into the air. Panic quickly broke out as the crowd turned and ran. Some of the debris came down among the spectators, killing two and seriously injuring at least six others. A photographer, Jarvis "Joe" Deane of Waco, lost one eye to a flying bolt.Perfesser Bill site.
See also th
Crash at Crush historical marker
(accessed 2012-09-15). The locomotives and their boxcars were reduced to scraps of wood and steel:

Aftermath

The story made national headlines, and Crush was immediately fired from the Katy Railroad. In light of a lack of negative publicity, however, he was rehired the next day and continued to work for the company until his retirement, in a career spanning six decades.Masterson, Vincent V.
The Katy Railroad and the Last Frontier
', (Google Books), University of Missouri Press, 1988, p. 272, (). Retrieved 26 May 2007. The Katy Railroad quickly settled several lawsuits from the victims' families with cash and lifetime rail passes; the injured photographer received damages amounting to US$10,000 in 1896 (equivalent to more than $350,000 in 2023). Though the incident had resulted in tragedy, the Katy benefited enormously from the attention it received, including international recognition. Despite the disaster, many railroads continued to stage locomotive collisions in the following years.

Ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that had its peak from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its Syncopation, syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers ...

composer

Scott Joplin Scott Joplin (November 24, 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. Dubbed the "King of Ragtime", he composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the ...

, who was performing in the region at the time, composed a piano piece he called the "Great Crush Collision March" to commemorate the crash; the composition was dedicated to the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway. It was copyrighted on October 15, 1896, a month after the event. The piece was notable because it included instructions in the score for how to replicate the sounds of the trains' collision through playing techniques, specific notes, and the use of dynamics. In 1976, the

Texas Historical Commission The Texas Historical Commission is an agency dedicated to historic preservation within the U.S. state of Texas. It administers the National Register of Historic Places for sites in Texas. The commission also identifies Recorded Texas Histor ...

erected a historical marker (number 5315) a few miles from the site in West, Texas.

Preparations

Safety precautions

Crash

Aftermath

See also

References

Further reading